Thieves make off with cedar saunas

City police are searching for three 12-foot-tall saunas that were stolen from a business parking lot at the start of the long weekend.

The Backyard Barrel is missing three of its five portable saunas, each of which is worth roughly $30,000 and used for multi-day rentals.

The co-owners of the company are pleading for the public to keep an eye out for the inventory they say was nabbed on Friday by multiple people equipped with a grey Dodge Ram truck.

Cristen Hamed said she panicked upon discovering the parking lot at 550 Archibald St., where she and her husband store their saunas with wheel locks, was empty on Saturday morning.

“They’re always there, these giant 12-foot saunas, they’re an eyesore — and it was just dead,” Hamed recalled.

The mother of two said her family cancelled their long weekend plans and instead searched security footage and filed a police report.

The footage shows at least two people showed up to the lot at 10:30 p.m. Friday and began loading in a sauna, she said.

Hamed said the crew of thieves returned twice around 2:30 a.m. and 4 a.m., respectively.

They cut off locks each time in order to hook a wood-fired sauna up to their truck, she said, noting the locks were strewn on the boulevard the next day.

“It was really sad to see them just dragged off,” Hamed said.

It was equally upsetting to discover security cameras caught the same truck visiting the St. Boniface site — which houses the couple’s other business, Kid City Archibald — earlier on Friday, she said.

The Winnipeg Police Service confirmed it had received multiple reports about the stolen items.

Const. Stephen Spencer, of the WPS public information office, said the case has been referred to the property crimes unit.

Officers are checking security footage, interviewing witnesses and proceeding with other typical investigative practises, Spencer said.

Hamed said her family has reason to believe the suspects in question have targeted other local businesses.

While noting the saunas are made of cedar, a valuable material that could be used for other purposes, the business owners are hopeful their saunas will be recovered intact, she said.

“They could take it apart, sand it down and use it for something else, but it’s all welded together so that won’t be easy,” Hamed said.

She added that they are lucky to be in the middle of a slow season as their five saunas are usually fully booked every weekend between October and May.

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca