As owner of a beloved Alberta family business that’s operated for nearly 70 years, Kyler Zeleny could feel pride — and maybe a little luck — knowing the establishment had never experienced a break-in or act of vandalism.
So when it finally happened, as it did to Stawnichy’s Mundare Sausage store this month — it stung, even if the thieves didn’t walk away with much more than pocket change.
“Property crime, especially in small towns, is an ongoing problem, and a lot of these businesses within these small towns have been broken into or vandalized,” said Zeleny, assistant general manager and a member of the Stawnichy family that runs the well-known store in Mundare, roughly 80 kilometres east of Edmonton.
“We were very fortunate we went as long as we did without being vandalized.”
Now, after their first encounter with property crime, the business is offering a “meaty” reward for anyone who can provide information that leads to an arrest.
“We’ve tried to sweeten this by offering a reward of 100 sausage rings of locally made, locally smoked Mundare sausage,” said Zeleny.
Smash and grab
Just before midnight on April 8, Vegreville RCMP responded to a business alarm at 5210 50 Street in Mundare.
Police reviewed footage of two suspects who smashed their way into the store and stole a cash register. Footage showed the suspects jumping over the front counter, ripping the register free, and fleeing through a door they broke down.
“They smashed two windows to get in. They smashed the side panel glass and then the front door. I’m not sure why they broke that, too,” said Zeleny.
“The most annoying thing is that the amount of value they got for the amount of damage they caused is inequitable.
“They ran off with the register that had $80-$90 worth of coins, and left us with a bill of nearly $4,000. It just seems idiotic. Nobody keeps cash in a register anymore. I don’t know what their thought process was.”
Zeleny said he was alerted to the break-in just before going to go to bed. Instead of sleeping, he spent the night assessing the damage, and boarding up the damaged areas of the store.
The business managed to reopen the following day with only a few hiccups. Zeleny commended his staff for pulling together to overcome the incident.
He made a post on social media informing customers about the break-in, and the community has responded with strong support.
“People are calling in, offering their support and coming through the store and buying a little extra, which is really nice,” said Zeleny.
‘Community comes together’
He said he’s stayed in contact with RCMP, and they’ve told him they’ve received a lot of potential tips in relation to the case.
While the crime has caused headaches in fixing the damage caused by the thieves, Zeleny said he hopes to use the sausage-ring reward as a fun way to not only bring attention to it, but to also show that the community will fight back against rural crime.
“The amount of chatter that there’s been, the amount of folks that are actively trying to be part of solving this and talking about this, I’m confident that even if the two (suspects) aren’t caught, they won’t be coming back to the community.”
“We have a 42-foot fibreglass sausage that is intentionally erected in our town,” he added. “There’s a bit of comedy in what we do. We’re in the meat industry, food is meant to be fun for us, so I thought it would be a fun, little cheeky thing we could do to bring attention to this.
“We want to help bring justice to a small-town business … but I also think what’s important, too, is we show how our community comes together for us, and hopefully make would-be criminals think twice before trying to vandalize other businesses, whether it’s in our community or not, because we don’t want those folks in our town.”
The first suspect is described as wearing a red hoodie and black sweater with white stripes down the arms and white writing on the back. The suspect was also wearing black track pants with stripes, red gloves, red mask, black baseball-style hat and red running shoes.
The second suspect was wearing a grey or dark green jacket, grey pants, grey running shoes with a white bottom, grey gloves and a black mask with a white pattern.
Vegreville RCMP are looking for two suspects who broke into Stawnichy’s Mundare Sausage store on April 8 in Mundare, Alta.
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