recycled
12-31-1969, 08:00 PM
Not a huge 'issue' story but entertaining for it's offbeat nature:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080722.wbikes22/BNStory/National/home
Police recover stolen bikes by the hundreds
ANTHONY REINHART
From Tuesday's Globe and Mail
Igor Kenk's rented house sticks out like a bad tooth in a brilliant smile on
Berryman Street in Yorkville, where a renovated townhouse goes for
$1.2-million.
A sticky-note advertisement for 1-800-GOT-JUNK fades beside the front door,
and if it's meant to be a question, the answer is yes, even after the police
came by on Sunday to remove 100 bicycles from the garage out back. An array
of castoff items, from milk crates and tennis balls to a copy of Modern
Competitive Analysis, Third Edition, still littered Mr. Kenk's driveway
yesterday, where his Toyota pickup, bearing the vanity plate EXTATIC, sat
silent, its cargo box full of similar detritus.
As for the bikes, they sat in a police warehouse among another 1,500 and
counting that officers have seized from five Toronto addresses linked to Mr.
Kenk, owner of a ramshackle repair shop on Queen Street West where stolen
bicycles were allegedly sold, sometimes back to their original owners,
police say.
Mr. Kenk, 49, who faces charges of theft and possession of stolen property,
along with possession of drugs including marijuana, crack cocaine and
powdered cocaine, is in jail pending a bail hearing this Friday. Jean
Laveau, 47, whom Mr. Kenk allegedly instructed to steal a bicycle while
police looked on last Wednesday, was arrested with him and faces similar
counts.
Initially, police removed hundreds of bikes from Mr. Kenk's shop, but
hundreds more were found in weekend searches of his Yorkville home, where
police said the drugs were found, and at garages he had rented on College
Street, east of Dufferin Street, and on Dovercourt Road, north of Dupont
Street. As news of the alleged theft operation circulated, police received a
tip and cleared out a fifth storage facility yesterday.
As aggrieved theft victims filed into the Hanna Avenue police garage to peer
hopefully into the massive jumble of frames and handlebars just after 2 p.m.
yesterday, a cube van full of bikes arrived, fresh from the latest search.
"You haven't seen around the corner yet," Superintendent Ruth White of 14
division said as she waded deeper into the warehouse, "and there's more
coming."
Supt. White said she hasn't seen anything like it in 30 years of policing.
"We had a woman identify her bike that was stolen eight years ago," she
said, adding that about 70 owners had so far been reunited with their
wheels - or at least their frames.
Grant Downey, a 39-year-old real estate agent, was among the lucky. After a
fruitless visit to the warehouse on Saturday, he returned yesterday after
more bikes had arrived, and there, in plain view, was his baby: a sparkling,
lime-green Scapin, an Italian beauty worth $3,000, though it was missing its
wheels.
"It's the green one there," Mr. Downey said as he pointed and jumped with
excitement. "I'd know it anywhere. It's very rare."
After a battery of questions from police, Mr. Downey was handed his bike
back. "It was three years ago," he said of its theft from a secure lockup at
his east-end condo, "but I never gave up hope."
Mr. Downey said he went to Mr. Kenk's shop to look for his bike shortly
after it went missing, a common practice among theft victims, since it
operated as a pawn shop. (Detective Izzy Bernardo, a lead investigator in
the case, said that before his arrest, the shop owner had, as required, kept
weekly logs of bicycles that he took in to sell, and that he had
occasionally turned in bikes that had been found to be stolen.)
But, because Mr. Downey had not registered his bicycle with the police or
recorded its serial number, he could not have definitively claimed it when
he visited Mr. Kenk. As it was, the shop owner, citing the extreme clutter
inside his shop, "wouldn't let me in," Mr. Downey said.
Curtis Monti, 35, reported a similar experience yesterday, recalling the
Oct. 26, 2005, theft of his $3,000 Kona Explosif, in broad daylight and
captured on a surveillance camera, at Bloor and St. George streets.
"People said, 'If it's anywhere, it's at Igor's,' " Mr. Monti said, so he
paid Mr. Kenk a visit. "I sort of baited him to lead him to believe I was
looking [to buy] a bike," rather than the victim of a recent theft, he said.
Mr. Kenk allowed him into the cramped chaos of his shop, and "it looked like
Silence of the Lambs for bicycles," but he did not see his Kona among them.
Mr. Monti had the same result at the police warehouse yesterday.
"I've already got it replaced," he said. "I just want to see an end to the
story."
That's not likely any time soon, as police begin the laborious task of going
through the massive cache of seized bicycles. Happy as they were to hand 70
of them back to their owners, it barely made a dent in the pile, most of
which remained unsorted. Yesterday was the last day the warehouse, which is
needed for repairs to cruisers and other police work, was to be open to the
public, but Supt. White said police are scrounging for 1,400 square metres
[15,000 square feet] of space, on a donated site if necessary, to catalogue
and display them for another two weeks.
"I just can't believe the constant flow of the public," she said, adding
that people's reactions have been stronger than those typically seen after a
house break-in. "Obviously, it's important to people."
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080722.wbikes22/BNStory/National/home
Police recover stolen bikes by the hundreds
ANTHONY REINHART
From Tuesday's Globe and Mail
Igor Kenk's rented house sticks out like a bad tooth in a brilliant smile on
Berryman Street in Yorkville, where a renovated townhouse goes for
$1.2-million.
A sticky-note advertisement for 1-800-GOT-JUNK fades beside the front door,
and if it's meant to be a question, the answer is yes, even after the police
came by on Sunday to remove 100 bicycles from the garage out back. An array
of castoff items, from milk crates and tennis balls to a copy of Modern
Competitive Analysis, Third Edition, still littered Mr. Kenk's driveway
yesterday, where his Toyota pickup, bearing the vanity plate EXTATIC, sat
silent, its cargo box full of similar detritus.
As for the bikes, they sat in a police warehouse among another 1,500 and
counting that officers have seized from five Toronto addresses linked to Mr.
Kenk, owner of a ramshackle repair shop on Queen Street West where stolen
bicycles were allegedly sold, sometimes back to their original owners,
police say.
Mr. Kenk, 49, who faces charges of theft and possession of stolen property,
along with possession of drugs including marijuana, crack cocaine and
powdered cocaine, is in jail pending a bail hearing this Friday. Jean
Laveau, 47, whom Mr. Kenk allegedly instructed to steal a bicycle while
police looked on last Wednesday, was arrested with him and faces similar
counts.
Initially, police removed hundreds of bikes from Mr. Kenk's shop, but
hundreds more were found in weekend searches of his Yorkville home, where
police said the drugs were found, and at garages he had rented on College
Street, east of Dufferin Street, and on Dovercourt Road, north of Dupont
Street. As news of the alleged theft operation circulated, police received a
tip and cleared out a fifth storage facility yesterday.
As aggrieved theft victims filed into the Hanna Avenue police garage to peer
hopefully into the massive jumble of frames and handlebars just after 2 p.m.
yesterday, a cube van full of bikes arrived, fresh from the latest search.
"You haven't seen around the corner yet," Superintendent Ruth White of 14
division said as she waded deeper into the warehouse, "and there's more
coming."
Supt. White said she hasn't seen anything like it in 30 years of policing.
"We had a woman identify her bike that was stolen eight years ago," she
said, adding that about 70 owners had so far been reunited with their
wheels - or at least their frames.
Grant Downey, a 39-year-old real estate agent, was among the lucky. After a
fruitless visit to the warehouse on Saturday, he returned yesterday after
more bikes had arrived, and there, in plain view, was his baby: a sparkling,
lime-green Scapin, an Italian beauty worth $3,000, though it was missing its
wheels.
"It's the green one there," Mr. Downey said as he pointed and jumped with
excitement. "I'd know it anywhere. It's very rare."
After a battery of questions from police, Mr. Downey was handed his bike
back. "It was three years ago," he said of its theft from a secure lockup at
his east-end condo, "but I never gave up hope."
Mr. Downey said he went to Mr. Kenk's shop to look for his bike shortly
after it went missing, a common practice among theft victims, since it
operated as a pawn shop. (Detective Izzy Bernardo, a lead investigator in
the case, said that before his arrest, the shop owner had, as required, kept
weekly logs of bicycles that he took in to sell, and that he had
occasionally turned in bikes that had been found to be stolen.)
But, because Mr. Downey had not registered his bicycle with the police or
recorded its serial number, he could not have definitively claimed it when
he visited Mr. Kenk. As it was, the shop owner, citing the extreme clutter
inside his shop, "wouldn't let me in," Mr. Downey said.
Curtis Monti, 35, reported a similar experience yesterday, recalling the
Oct. 26, 2005, theft of his $3,000 Kona Explosif, in broad daylight and
captured on a surveillance camera, at Bloor and St. George streets.
"People said, 'If it's anywhere, it's at Igor's,' " Mr. Monti said, so he
paid Mr. Kenk a visit. "I sort of baited him to lead him to believe I was
looking [to buy] a bike," rather than the victim of a recent theft, he said.
Mr. Kenk allowed him into the cramped chaos of his shop, and "it looked like
Silence of the Lambs for bicycles," but he did not see his Kona among them.
Mr. Monti had the same result at the police warehouse yesterday.
"I've already got it replaced," he said. "I just want to see an end to the
story."
That's not likely any time soon, as police begin the laborious task of going
through the massive cache of seized bicycles. Happy as they were to hand 70
of them back to their owners, it barely made a dent in the pile, most of
which remained unsorted. Yesterday was the last day the warehouse, which is
needed for repairs to cruisers and other police work, was to be open to the
public, but Supt. White said police are scrounging for 1,400 square metres
[15,000 square feet] of space, on a donated site if necessary, to catalogue
and display them for another two weeks.
"I just can't believe the constant flow of the public," she said, adding
that people's reactions have been stronger than those typically seen after a
house break-in. "Obviously, it's important to people."