Dartmouth, N.S. lumberyard owner robbed three times in one year, says high costs may be a factor

HALIFAX -

The cost of building materials is making lumber an attractive target for thieves who aren't willing to pay the price or are looking to make some extra cash from re-selling the stolen goods.

One lumber distributor in Dartmouth, N.S. says he's been robbed three times in the last year.

The most recent theft at Robbins Lumber Distribution on Aug. 22 wasn't the typical "smash-and-grab" according to Mike Howell, who owns the lumberyard. 

Surveillance video shows 27 minutes elapsing from the time the suspect's vehicle and trailer entered the lumberyard to the time they left.

Howell says those responsible didn't seem worried about tripping the alarm.

“They circumvented my security system by taking the gate right off the hinges so they wouldn't disconnect our sensor,” explained Howell.

Because the alarm wasn’t triggered, the only way Howell knew he had been robbed was because the gate was not put back together.

Howell says the target during this theft was shingles

“This is me just speculating, they came and decided which colour they wanted and took that specific colour," Howell says.

Initially, Howell thought the stolen property was valued at $2,000, but after checking their supply, he noticed a lot more was missing.

”When we counted inventory there was a lot more than $2,000 missing, you know, we were missing about $5,000 worth of inventory,” says Howell. “We do rotating inventory counts so, something happened to the inventory.”

Howell isn't sure when the other stock was taken but says he's been robbed three times that he knows of in the last year. According to him, he isn't the only one seeing the problem.

“You hear the stories from the building supply yard of different job site thefts that are occurring. I wasn’t really aware of a lot of business theft until the police were here and informed me that this was a professional crew that did this,” Howell says.

Howell estimates each theft is around $2,500 – a number that is starting to add up when it comes to lost revenue.  

While he isn't optimistic he'll get his product back, Howell is offering a $2,000 reward for information that leads to the arrest of the individual or individuals responsible for the theft.