Trials and tribulations, Kathleen’s (Our lovely little shop in Blackpool) was broken into in the early hours of Sunday morning. The most annoying thing is that amazingly the police actually caught the thieves red handed, actually inside the shop, the bit that is upsetting is that this does not guarantee a conviction, even more shocking is that one of these alleged thieves was very possibly the same person that was caught in precisely the same situation a few months ago and potentially the same person (he certainly matched a description given at the time) that came into the shop frightening the girls.
The thing is this Kathleen’s is a lovely shop, not necessarily the busiest shop in the world but it provides three/four florists with a livelihood, it provides the community with a proper florist shop, with qualified florists who can offer an excellent service in and out of the season.
All of this is in jeopardy because a couple of idiots think they can break in doing £1200.00 worth of damage to steal what absolutely does not belong to them, Kathleen’s has been broken into already a number of times this year, we have nothing to steal (Other than flowers) they cannot access the chemist via Kathleen’s or any other premises. But every time they break in, we have to replace the window, the door or pay for the roof to be repaired and though we can claim on our insurance (apart from the excess) our insurers will undoubtedly increase the premium or eventually insist on roller shutters which incidentally Kathleen’s quite simply can’t afford.
We asked the police woman (Who seems as frustrated as us) why a custodial sentence is un-likely, she explained that the accused may say that they were just passing by and happened to notice a big gaping hole in our door and so they climbed in to check that everything was ok, the reason they have some bits and pieces of the staffs property on their person is just to prevent any would be thieves from taking it, so they are in fact protecting it! (This supposedly was their excuse last time they were caught red handed).
We never ever allow there to be only one person in the shop when it is open, there are undesirables that knock about every town and it wouldn’t be safe, we have a walky talky radio that links to the police station just in case and we have a burglar alarm, we are taking responsibility for the safety of the staff and the shop to a level that we can afford.
We have now taken to removing any pieces of funeral work for early delivery and storing them at the St. Annes shop for safe keeping, we ensure that no paper orders are kept on the premises because we don’t want to lose them in the mess that follows one of these break ins, but this is all so upsetting for the staff and us, we know far worse things happen to other people but really none of us should have to put up with it!
