COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Two Christmas thieves were caught on camera stealing decorations from the popular German restaurant Edelweiss.
It happened early Saturday morning just before five when security cameras captured a mini-van with a man and a woman stealing two Christmas tree decorations.
In the 26 years that the current owners have operated the restaurant, they’ve had a couple of problems including bears and cars being broken into but this is the first time they’ve caught someone on camera stealing from them.
“A guy came in and took two of the trees and took them up to the corner, dropped them, then went up and got his vehicle and came around and picked them up again,” said Gary Schnakenberg, the restaurant owner.
Surveillance video at the front of the building caught the man walking to the entrance where he’s then seen taking apart the trees which were bolted to the ground.
“I think they broke one and then maybe used a screwdriver to take the other one out,” said Schnakenberg.
One camera caught all the action as the mini-van is seen pulling up alongside the street. That’s when a woman gets out, hesitates as another car drives by, before stealing the trees.
“They’re not of big value or anything but it’s just the display itself looks nice and we get a lot of compliments on it,” said Schnakenberg.
It took the owner two weeks to decorate the place inside and out for the Christmas season and he says something like this is disappointing.
“It’s just terrible to have, you know, to spend a little time making this really nice and everything and then have somebody who just comes and steals it,” said Schnakenberg.
As far as the two Christmas scrooges go,
“I want these people that stole the trees, I want them to see themselves on TV so that all their neighbors and everybody else knows who did this.” said Schnakenberg.
Schnakenberg says that despite the incident, he isn’t going to move the rest of the decorations inside.
