It’s a tragedy-turned-triumph story of how a man who pedaled 9,000 miles through 31 states promoting pet adoptions had his bike stolen in Mission Beach – then promptly recovered a day later with the aid of a TV newscaster.
Nearly three years ago, bartender-turned-animal welfare spokesman Mike Minnick decided to change his life. Opting to leave his past in the rearview, Minnick quit his job and gave up smoking. He then set out from Texas on a cross-country “odyssey” with Bixby, his 5-year-old rescue dog, riding on his Yuba Mundo cargo bike, outfitted to accommodate Bixby’s bed in a crate, as well as the pair’s mascot, “Chicken Charlie,” a rubber chicken.
The pair’s goal: to promote pet adoption, animal shelters and the welfare of four-legged creatures large and small wherever they go.
However, their journey almost stopped, for good, on Sept. 18, when Minnick, who’d been staying temporarily in a dwelling with a garage with a defective door near the Belmont Park roller coaster, found his bike, and most of his belongings and all the memorabilia from his trip, missing about 4 a.m.
Crestfallen but undaunted, Minnick, who described the theft as “a really big hiccup,” vowed to get it back “one way or another” while not letting “one jerk ruin everything I’ve done over more than two years.”
So Minnick did the usual things with stolen property. He filled out a police report, started combing through Craigslist ads looking for his stolen property and contacted local broadcast news sources to get word out about his plight.
Enter 10News reporter Itica Milanes, who interviewed Minnick for a TV news spot.
That’s where the story got really interesting.
“Itica was coming back from the airport after picking up a friend and saw harbor police talking to a man on a bike that looked exactly like mine,” said Minnick. “Police let the man go, and Itica followed and confronted him. She asked the man nicely, ‘Where did you get that bike?’ He said, ‘Mission Beach.’”
Milanes continued to question the man about his bike, suspecting, from the hesitancy of his answers, that he was the suspected thief.
Under further questioning, the suspected bike thief got antsier and antsier. He subsequently fled after the reporter point-blank asked him if the bike had been stolen, to which he mumbled something incoherent, like ‘A guy in a wheelchair needs it more.’”
“They found the guy riding my bike a short time later and arrested him and put him in jail,” said Minnick.
Minnick recovered his bike, with its light broken, from police. But he was still missing Bixby’s bed and most of his memorabilia as well as Chicken Charlie.
The carton containing Bixby’s bed miraculously turned up a day later, found next to a dumpster on Texas Street.
Minnick was thrilled. But he said his “victory” won’t be complete until – or unless – he recovers his mascot.
“As dumb as it may seem, that rubber chicken is special, is one of a kind, and has been with me more than two years as part of our ‘menagerie,’” said Minnick, adding, “I intend to get it back.”
Minnick has had some 200 fliers made proclaiming that “Chicken Charlie is still being held hostage.”
He’s distributed them along the beachfront and elsewhere in town and remains hopeful that he and his mascot will be reunited soon.
Anyone with information about Chicken Charlie’s whereabouts is urged to call (713) 530-9052.