It\u2019s 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 \u2013 then promptly recovered a day later with the aid of a TV newscaster.
\nNearly 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\u2019s bed in a crate, as well as the pair\u2019s mascot, “Chicken Charlie,” a rubber chicken.
\nThe pair\u2019s goal: to promote pet adoption, animal shelters and the welfare of four-legged creatures large and small wherever they go.
\nHowever, their journey almost stopped, for good, on Sept. 18, when Minnick, who\u2019d 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.
\nCrestfallen 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\u2019ve done over more than two years.”
\nSo 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.
\nEnter 10News reporter Itica Milanes, who interviewed Minnick for a TV news spot.
\nThat\u2019s where the story got really interesting.
\n“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, \u2018Where did you get that bike?\u2019 He said, \u2018Mission Beach.\u2019”
\nMilanes continued to question the man about his bike, suspecting, from the hesitancy of his answers, that he was the suspected thief.
\nUnder 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 \u2018A guy in a wheelchair needs it more.\u2019”
\n“They found the guy riding my bike a short time later and arrested him and put him in jail,” said Minnick.
\nMinnick recovered his bike, with its light broken, from police. But he was still missing Bixby\u2019s bed and most of his memorabilia as well as Chicken Charlie.
\nThe carton containing Bixby\u2019s bed miraculously turned up a day later, found next to a dumpster on Texas Street.
\nMinnick was thrilled. But he said his “victory” won\u2019t be complete until \u2013 or unless \u2013 he recovers his mascot.
\n“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 \u2018menagerie,\u2019” said Minnick, adding, “I intend to get it back.”
\nMinnick has had some 200 fliers made proclaiming that “Chicken Charlie is still being held hostage.”
\nHe\u2019s distributed them along the beachfront and elsewhere in town and remains hopeful that he and his mascot will be reunited soon.
\nAnyone with information about Chicken Charlie\u2019s whereabouts is urged to call (713) 530-9052.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It\u2019s 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 \u2013 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 […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":274113,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11559","_seopress_titles_title":"Bixby, the stolen bike and the TV reporter","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11559,11551],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-274112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beach-bay-press","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=274112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274112\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/274113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=274112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=274112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=274112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}