(STORY IMAGE:KHQ.COM)
SPOKANE, Wash. -A small, family-owned business in Spokane is hit hard again when criminals take off with their industrial air conditioning unit.
Dan Duncan and his wife have owned Party Palace for the past three decades. But in the last four years, they’ve had to deal with five of their air conditioning units getting stolen. He just replaced two units last spring, and even put a fence around it thinking it would prevent theft.
The most recent time happened overnight and Dan discovered the mess Thursday morning: piles of clipped fence wires and pieces of the unit that were ripped out of the wall and left on the ground. Dan says this is the first time someone actually hauled away the entire unit. He says they're stripping it for copper, but while the thieves get maybe $30, it costs the business $3,000.
“It just dumbfounds me the stuff they do,” he says.
That’s because it’s not the only thing. He says he deals with other kinds of suspicious activity and also graffiti in area.
“I don't know. It's kind of disheartening as a business owner,” he says.
Dan says it’s sad that people are this desperate, but hopes they get the help they need.
A neighbor told Dan that they heard something around 2 a.m. on Thursday. If you have any information on who may have done this, give Crime Check a call 509-456-2233.