A close-knit community of dairy owners in Levin are in shock after two brazen burglaries last week and have staged meetings with the town’s mayor.
Raiders smashed through the front windows of LA 2000 Dairy in Oxford Street at 4.30am on Wednesday, January 11. On the same road further south, the Oxford Dairy was robbed in much the same style, at 1.30am the following Sunday.
Dairy owners in town know each other well. Most play club cricket and are friends. Now, they were supporting each other through the ordeal of having their livelihoods raided by thieves in the middle of the night.
Horowhenua Mayor Bernie Wanden met with a group of dairy owners this week, and will meet them again next week along with police and other agencies. Security camera footage from both raids has been handed to the police, who are yet to make any arrests.
Camera footage from outside the LA 2000 store shows three cars pulling up. One car noses up to the front door, which has two solid concrete pillars on either side, then retreats.
Moments later, footage from another in-store camera shows stands full of produce crashing forward as the raiders smash the front windows and enter on foot.
The video then shows a minute of complete mayhem. Four masked intruders clamber inside the store, with another stationed outside. Unable to access tobacco products that were locked away, they made off with what they could from the vape stand and the cash register.
Kellyanne McKay and her daughter Mya-Jean, 14, were asleep in living quarters adjoining the store. They were awoken by a security alarm, and could only helplessly watch live security camera footage from behind a locked security door just metres away.
“I came racing down to the kitchen thinking it was a false alarm, but saw straight away on the monitor that it wasn’t,” she said.
She activated the “panic button” which alerted a security company and police, who arrived a short time later and assured her it was safe to come out.
McKay was shopkeeping for owners Sonal and Kamal Patel, who were on holiday at the time. She had worked at the shop for three years. It was hard to phone them on their holiday with the news they had been raided, she said.
“Their first concern was for us. They wanted to know if we were okay. They said the shop is a business. They were worried about us,” she said.
“They’re amazing. They don’t deserve this.”
McKay said she has had trouble sleeping since the robbery. Initially she described feeling shock, which had now turned to anger.
“I’ve never felt unsafe before. It’s only at night because you hear every single noise. You don’t sleep,” she said.
The store was forced to close for a day, missing out on valuable trade. Representatives from Northern Comfort fixed the countertop, while Novus Glass answered an early call to replace the broken windows.
Oxford Dairy owner Milan Patidar helped McKay wire in a replacement register and Eftpos machine. In a cruel twist of fate, just days later his dairy was ram-raided too.
McKay was furious to learn the Patidar’s store had also been raided, and hoped the police would soon make an arrest. A police statement said they were investigating whether the two robberies were linked.
Patidar also provided the police with detailed camera footage of the raid on his store, from four different angles. The outside camera showed a car ramming the front door, with inside footage showing four people looting the shop soon after, ransacking the cigarette stand and making off with the cash drawer.
Again, the police were alerted to the robbery. This time a vehicle involved was identified and spiked and eventually came to a halt at the Levin AP&I Showgrounds.
A stolen car linked to the raid on the Oxford Dairy at the weekend crashed through the gates at the Carlisle Street entrance to Levin Showgrounds.
The occupants abandoned the vehicle and fled the scene, but not before they had caused considerable damage to the showgrounds, just days out from this weekend’s annual show.
Show secretary Jill Timms said association members had rallied to replace broken gates and fencing with materials they had on hand, and had spent hours scouring the ground picking up broken glass and debris left behind by the spiked car.
“They smashed through the gate at Carlisle Street and drove across the oval and smashed through rails in the birdcage. There were bits of debris everywhere,” she said.
Patidar said two cars involved in the robbery at his store were reported as stolen from Levin.
Both raids were expected to cost many thousands of dollars in repairs and replacement of stock. Patidar also had to close up shop for a day to clean up and repair broken shelves and equipment.
Police are still welcoming anyone who might have information about either robbery, including CCTV or dashcam footage, and wanted anyone who saw suspicious activity between Oxford Street and the Levin Showgrounds on January 15 between 1am and 2am to contact them.
Information can be shared via 105, either by calling or online at https://www.police.govt.nz/use-105 ‘Update Report’. Please reference file number 2301154515. Information can also be shared anonymously via Crime Stoppers on 0800 555 111.
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