Business is business. You are out to make a dollar and not help the other guy out; you want to bury him. However, there is a time and a place where it becomes good business to put the drive for personal financial success behind you and work with your competition for the greater good of one and all.
Self storage facility owners in the Augusta, Georgia, are doing just that. Over the last few weeks several of them have had their security systems cracked and have been victimized by a series of burglaries. Among them are places like Hollywood Self Storage, which had a couple of units robbed on December 13. Gate 5 Self Storage was hit earlier in the month, but had 50 of its units broken into. Authorities and the storage facility owners have reason to believe it is the same crew committing all the robberies.
"They're all doing the same thing," said Max Vallotten, owner of Gate 5 Self Storage. "They're cutting the fence, cutting the locks."
The authorities have confirmed this by adding that the ones that have been committed do all look very similar in style and are very likely linked. Another facility, McBean Self Storage has also been hit with 15 units having a variety of things stolen out of them including Christmas presents.
Most facilities do have some electronic surveillance, but the authorities have said that it can be difficult to distinguish any recognizable features off low quality, nighttime surveillance video.
"A lot of these places, although they have security cameras, a lot of them do not have on-scene security such as officers," said Richmond County Sheriff's Lt. Tony Walden. "A lot of times, you can't see anything… We're just hoping that maybe somebody will recognize a clothing feature or something like that and give us a call with a tip."
Not willing to just sit idly by, several of the self storage owners in the area have decided to bind together in order to protect themselves better and fight back against the criminal element. They have decided to form what they are calling the South Augusta Alliance.
Members of the Alliance will be meeting in the near future to discuss what they can do as business owners to help protect each other and even aid in the arrest of the criminals responsible. One of the things likely to be discussed will be the collection of money to go towards a reward for information that leads to the apprehension of a suspect(s).
Sources Used:
“Self-storage owners fight back against thieves.” WRDW.com; 16 December 2010.