North Oakland clothing and accessories boutique Afterglow is recuperating after a burglary in which thieves made off with merchandise worth more than $12,500 last Friday morning. The thieves hacked through the thick wood door to pry apart the deadbolt enough to kick the door in, wrote owner Amy M. Cools in an e-mail last week. A burglary in North Oakland isn’t unusual these days, she says, but what is suspicious is the burglars’ choice of pilfered goods. Of the 150 pieces taken, 125 were designs of Cools’ own AC Clothing and Bags label. Even then, they “neatly” took some things and not others from the tiny boutique, which specializes in local designers. “I would have expected them to take easily sellable stuff like screen-print tees and jewelry,” she says. “They only went for high-dollar clothing and handbags.”
Cools says recent burglaries at other Temescal businesses like Lanesplitter, California Bank and Trust, and Ruby’s Garden Kidwear & Flower Shop have shown similar trends in discretion. Thieves took the pizza parlor’s cash box but left the nearby and plainly-in-sight tip jar. “There seems to be this funny pattern of them stealing of almost being thoughtful,” she says. “Like leaving things for the businesses to go on with in a way.”
.“Thoughtful” Burglars in Temescal?
