By Spencer Sterritt

Kellers Jewellers suffer ‘heart-wrenching’ early morning robbery

Oct 21, 2017 | 12:32 PM

NANAIMO — A beloved jewellery store in Lantzville is covered in roughly an inch of smashed glass after robbers broke in early Saturday morning. 

Kellers Jewellery owner Joe Keller said his door and display alarms went off at roughly 5 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 21 and RCMP were contacted shortly after. When he arrived at his store, he found the front door ripped open with a crowbar and his french doors smashed with the crowbar and rocks. “We had three, possibly four glass jewellery counters smashed to pieces. There’s close to an inch of glass on the floor.” 

He said it was heart-wrenching to step in to his store and see the damage. 

“Unfortunately in the jewellery industry you have to take things like this because it’s not an uncommon occurrence.” 

Many of the stolen items look like priceless jewellery, but Keller said many of them are prototypes or display only items not worth nearly as much as the robbers probably thought. 

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“They took some inventory but it’s mainly more the damage to the place.”

Customer’s jewellery and their more expensive items were safe in their vault. Without having done a full check, Keller estimated roughly $15,000 was taken from the store. 

Keller guessed the robbers weren’t the “brightest crayons in the box” because they left their crowbar behind. It’s in RCMP custody for prints.

“If I get it back I’m going to frame it and hang it on the wall. It’ll be my $20,000 crowbar.” 

Even though the store is destroyed, Keller said customers still need their jewellery fixed or returned so the store will be somewhat open and they’re expected to fully open in a week.

Nanaimo RCMP would only confirm there was a break-in at the store and they were investigating.

spencer@nanaimonewsnow.com

On Twitter: @spencer_sterrit