Break in

[Terry Monohan]

Frank****Maybe It was a theatre GHOST.

[Lyle Romer]

Well... Cash drawer? Till? Same thing, basically.

Anyhow, leave it open like I said. Put a $20 on the bottom of the drawer... Underneath that is a handwritten sign that says: "Don't turn around! I have a gun!"

It is a good idea, especially the note to make it like a scene from a movie!

[Ryan Gallagher]

My wife said tonight that he was probably banging the cash drawers, trying to take them out. Which makes sense since there isn't much else around there that would make that kind of metallic banging. I don't know why he would have wanted to take them out, though. They're just empty drawers.

Speaking of cash. You don't have one of those convenience 3rd party ATMs installed inside do you?

Frank****Maybe It was a theatre GHOST.

You should absolutely pretend it is a ghost, and collect any other tenuous ghost stories you can. There is a whole other market to tap into if you can get on the haunted places map. ;-) Lol

[Ed Gordon]

Even though there was no theft or property damage, your sense of security has been stolen. People who have experienced a break in have told me they have a lingering sense of violation, and fear of problems in the future. If I were in your position I would concentrate on making my living quarters a "safe room". In the event of another unwelcome visitor, you can stay in your safe area, call the police and avoid surprising someone of who police are better prepared to deal with.

[Ryan Gallagher]

Even though there was no theft or property damage, your sense of security has been stolen. People who have experienced a break in have told me they have a lingering sense of violation, and fear of problems in the future. If I were in your position I would concentrate on making my living quarters a "safe room". In the event of another unwelcome visitor, you can stay in your safe area, call the police and avoid surprising someone of who police are better prepared to deal with.

Yeah when it happened to my girlfriend's roommate in college, she literally could not remain in that house despite trying, bedrooms had to be swapped and I became a permanent resident in the bedroom that was accessible from the outside. But even that was not enough for her to feel secure in the long term, she moved out and went to live at home for a period.

[Leo Enticknap]

I'm not sure what the procedure is around your neck of the woods, but usually, when there was a break-in, the police around here sends a small "forensics team" to check if they can identify the source of the break in. That's important for multiple reasons, like securing evidence, an eventual insurance claim and also to ensure that this route can be eliminated for future break-ins. Eliminating the uncertainty of how he got in may also help you feel safe again in the place.

In my neck of the woods, the police are so overstretched that they won't normally attend the scene of a regular house burglary unless either an assault, injury, and/or fatality took place in the course of it, or there was a spate of them. They certainly won't if the property was unoccupied at the time. You file a report, get your police report number for the insurance claim, and that's that. There was even a burglary in Riverside last year in which the homeowner shot two burglars. Despite the homeowner calling 911 immediately, the corpse of one of them was on the staircase for three hours before police could get there. The other was not seriously injured by the gunshot, escaped, and, AFAIK, was never caught.

This might be a bit to soon yet, but are you considering to install some mitigating measures like a motion-based alarm and/or CCTV?

There are now reasonably priced self-install systems, e.g. Ring and Simplisafe, with motion detectors, cameras, and other sensors that communicate wirelessly with a base station. The base station has a built-in cellular modem, to enable it to maintain communication with the monitoring service if there is a power outage. The only downside is that because the entire setup is wireless, the sensors and endpoints have batteries that need to be swapped out regularly.

[Frank Cox]

I think our police here deal mostly with drunks, speeding tickets and rowdy parties.

But as Ed says, I'm starting to rethink some of my assumptions.

If I have plumbers or someone working here I would sometimes just leave the front door unlocked for the day so they can come and go and do their thing and just let me know when they're done. Maybe I shouldn't do that any more. It would be a lot less convenient for everyone.

I usually do my movie test screenings in the middle of the night, so I'm sitting completely alone in a dark and deserted theatre at 2am. I like doing it that way but I should probably reconsider that and do those screenings in the afternoon instead.

Sigh.

[Lyle Romer]

You might want to consider an electronic lock that allows you to give temporary access for letting people in. Some of them can be unlocked and locked remotely via an app.

[Randy Stankey]

I would have thought that, rather than trawl through security camera footage, the local police should only need to consult their list of known petty criminals and other troublemakers, eliminate those who don't have an alibi, and thereby find the perp.

You've got to be careful about that! Dragnetting is unconstitutional! The police can't accuse somebody of a crime without probable cause. Dragnetting is a form of accusation. (i.e. "This guy committed one crime, before, so he might be guilty of this other crime.")

A guy out on parole is a different story. Technically, he's still under sentence. He's just been let out of jail on the promise of good behavior. (The English term "parole" comes from the French, "parole d'honneur," meaning, "word of honor.") Because of that, the police have the right to check up on him at any reasonable time.

The word, "reasonable," being interpreted fairly broadly... The cops can't break in and roust a guy out of bed at 3:00 a.m. because of a report of purse snatching but, if the crime was a kidnapping with threat of death, they could. (To protect the life of an innocent person.)

A person who has paid his debt to society has the right to walk down the street without being harassed by the police, just the same as you do.

Now, if some reputable citizen provides a description of a person seen in proximity to a crime, the police DO have the right to question him. If there is legally-obtained video that shows a person who, potentially, could have committed a crime, they can question them, too.

The police MUST have probable cause and that probable cause MUST be derived from objective evidence, obtained through constitutional means.

[Jim Cassedy]

I'm very happy to hear that both you and the theater are OK!

[Mike Blakesley]

My day job is an auto parts store that used to have a stereo department. We sold amps, turntables, "all-in-one" (cheap) systems and all that. We would get broken into maybe once every four or five years and nobody ever stole money or anything from the parts side...only stereo gear.

Around 2005 we got out of the stereo biz for the most part, except for a few car stereos and a rack of CDs. With that change, the breakins stopped -- we haven't been hit since. (Knocking on wood here.)

The theater has yet to be hit, I think partly because we are in the very center of town under good street lighting, and we have a busy bar next door, so it would be hard for a bad person to come and go without being seen. These days about 70% or more of our business is in credit cards so we don't have much cash on hand any more anyway.

[Lyle Romer]

You've got to be careful about that! Dragnetting is unconstitutional! The police can't accuse somebody of a crime without probable cause. Dragnetting is a form of accusation. (i.e. "This guy committed one crime, before, so he might be guilty of this other crime.")

Is the same true in Canada where Frank is located?

[Randy Stankey]

I don't know the specifics but I am 90% certain that dragnetting is unconstitutional in Canada, as well.

In the US, it goes against the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. ("The right of the people to be secure...against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated...") In Canada, Section 8 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is similar.

[Dennis Benjamin]

Back in 1991, I was GM of my first theatre (Batman Return opening weekend). I had someone hide up in the ceiling of the theatre's men's restroom. They waited until the theatre was closed to come down and let their friends in. We obviously didn't have an alarm. They busted all the locked doors open until they found the upstairs office. They laid the safe on it's side and took six hours or so (the investigators estimate) with a sledge hammer and crowbar to peel a corner of the safe open and take the $900 out of it. I found the scene when I came in the next morning. They left whole handprints on various places in the office and were caught. But boy what an experience that was! (Cobb's Springhill 4 Theatre, Springhill. Florida).

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

This would have made a good "Dragnet" episode back in the day...