$10K worth of equipment stolen from Vapor Jedi

Staff at Vapor Jedi spent Tuesday morning cleaning up a mess after a robber ransacked the business.

Owner Mitch Tarala said he got a message at 4:57 a..m. saying the vape shop’s alarm had gone off. Within a half hour, he discovered the thief drilled out the door lock and security cameras showed the masked suspect entering the shop and heading straight for the display cases.

“(He) took about five minutes and cleared out several display cases and a lot of high end product,” Tarala said. “He went for the expensive stuff right away.”

Tarala estimates that in that time, the thief made off with around $10,000 worth of vaporizer and e-cigarette equipment.

Photos Tarala posted on social media show empty display cases and storage cupboards, along with scattered plastic boxes and flavour vapor juice containers on the floor.

Because of the businesses’ alarm system, police arrived within five minutes, but the thief was gone.

“We will be watching buy and sell groups, Kijiji, craigslist, reddit buy and sells,” he said. “Hopefully we can identify the products being sold. Many of the items are not available anywhere else near by except at our shop.”

He said they already have security measures in place, and may consider upgrading to a high definition security camera, but it’s unlikely it would have done anything since the man’s face was covered. 

Since posting news of the robbery on Facebook, Tarala said other businesses in the area have come forward saying they have been robbed in the past week. It’s unclear if the robberies are connected.

Vapor Jedi was open for business Tuesday. Tarala said they’re offering a reward for anyone who has information that leads to an arrest.