BonnerSprings.com

Moon Marble Company owner Bruce Breslow and his staff had a surprise waiting for them Monday morning when they arrived to work, but it wasn’t a welcome one. They found the store had been burglarized and ransacked during the weekend.

Breslow said he wasn’t sure if the burglary took place after he and his staff closed up shop Saturday evening or sometime on Sunday. Moon Marble is closed on Sundays.

What Breslow is sure about is the thieves, whom he suspects to be a group of young people, came in through the back window.

Items the thieves took from the store include quarters and dimes from the open registers and wires from telephones and computers.

In addition, a Web camera was taken, as well as a transmitter from the amplification system.

Breslow said the thieves didn’t stop at robbing the place, but also pulled items from cabinets and destroyed the front register, which he says will cost about $3,000 to replace. One of his computer screens was also stabbed with an ice pick.

What leads Breslow to believe the robbers were “local kids,” as he said, is that a large quantity of candy was stolen, as well. He said this clue might eventually lead to the identification of the robbers.

“I’d say if any parents are home, and they see their kids popping Pop Rocks, eating Fizzies (or) smoking a candy cigar, (they should) ask ’em where they got it,” Breslow said.

This isn’t the first time Moon Marble has been burglarized. In the 12 years it has been open, Breslow said his store had been burgled about five or six times. The last time, he said, was about three months ago.

Lt. Rick Schubert with the Bonner Springs Police Department said there were no suspects at this time, but he agreed with Breslow that it looked like the perpetrators had been young.

“By the things they took and the damage (they did), in my experience that would tend to be a juvenile,” Schubert said. “Adults usually don’t take change and things like that.”