Bird Rock merchants have banded together to battle a string of serial burglaries and paintball attacks that began a year ago on La Jolla Boulevard, costing the community both monetarily and emotionally.
“We’re on a shoestring budget. This is our livelihood,” said Miriam Zieminski, co-owner of Frame Masters & Fine Art.
Merchants say that the entry method used by the Bird Rock burglars in their latest crime spree, on July 19, when they broke into Stephanie’s Shoe Boutique and Haute Culture boutique, is one that they have perfected over the past year. The thieves threw rocks through Stephanie’s glass door, then crawled through the opening and stole high-end goods such as handbags, said Stephanie’s employee Jackie Zebrowski. Neighbors said that although alarms rang through the air, the thieves came and went before officers arrived. But one bandit left his DNA for police when shards of glass sliced into him, offering clues to an identity if police ever nab a suspect, Zebrowski said.
“They threw a rock through the door, kicked out the wood and took a couple of purses. Then they crawled through and must have scraped themselves because there was blood on the door,” Zebrowski said.
Zieminski’s frame shop at 5631 La Jolla Blvd. sits next to Bird Rock Coffee Roasters and Bodywear. Her neighbors recently became paintball victims, but Zieminski said she doesn’t think the two crimes are connected.
“It seems like a whole different type of attack,” Zieminski said. “I feel so bad for the merchants.”
According to Bodywear employee Amanda Mizell, the Bird Rock burglars began targeting Bodywear about a year ago.
“We were hit twice. [First was] one year ago, then most recently was three months ago, but there was also a third attempt. You can see where they tried to break in. There was a rock there,” Mizell said.
Bodywear had surveillance tapes running, and caught the Bird Rock burglars’ every move ” footage officers left behind.
Mizell described the May incident in which two white or Hispanic men in their late twenties or early thirties broke in. One dashed for an empty cash drawer, she said. When he realized the store was moneyless, he slammed the register shut, pulled on a heavily wired computer but couldn’t take that, so he broke the monitor. The men began grabbing yoga clothes, and then ran out, Mizell said.
“They tried to take the computer but couldn’t, so they knocked over the computer monitor,” Mizell said.
In all, the burglars reportedly took merchandise valued at more than $5,000, but the extensive hours of inventory time were the worst part, Mizell said.
The community gathered together to come to a resolution.
“The Bird Rock Community Council had a merchants meeting,” Mizell said.
“We had at least one BRCC-sponsored meeting in April and we’re having one Wednesday, August 6,” BRCC President Joe LaCava said. “The [police] have done little changes to increase their presence.”
And shop owners like Zieminski said that while merchant meetings with police have helped, offering valuable tips to make the stores less of a target, she thinks the community will take the next step.
“There’s been a rash for more than a year,” she said. “I think we’ll probably hire a private security guard.”
LaCava agreed, and said that police offered tips storeowners can employ to make shops less attractive for thieves ” such as moving high-end merchandise away from windows.
“All shop owners can do is make it more difficult for burglars,” LaCava said.
For more information about the BRCC, visit www.birdrock.org.