A bicycle was stolen from outside Tim Hortons restaurant in Lake Cowichan last Tuesday night.
The owner, Carter Allan, 16, entered the building after leaning the bicycle up against the side of it and when he returned it had vanished.
The bike is a WeThePeople BMX, black in colour, with gold handle bars.
“Carter is devastated,” said mom Denise who works at the bottle depot in town. “He works in Tim Hortons so his earnings raised the money to save up for the bike and he bought it last April.”
After realizing his bicycle had been taken, Carter immediately phoned his parents who put the word out on social media right away.
“Every minute that passed we were putting statuses up on Facebook,” said mom Denise. “He went into Tim Hortons with a couple of his buddies and they started spreading out right away to look for the bike. He was very upset when he called us and his dad got out of bed and immediately drove into town to pick him up. They then drove around for about an hour to look for it.
“I’ve spoken to the police already and they’re going to be getting footage from Tim Hortons. I’ll also be calling the bike shop in Duncan, where Carter bought it, to see if anything comes through there. I’ll be calling pawn shops as well.”
Lake Cowichan RCMP is already actively investigating.
“At approximately 8:45 p.m. a BMX type bicycle was stolen from the Tim Hortons restaurant located at 37 North Shore Road. The model was Versus,” said Cst. Andrew Burn in a press release.
Lake Cowichan RCMP is asking anyone with information or leads to contact the detachment at 250-749-6668 or call Crimestoppers at 1-800-222-8477.
In recent bike thefts are anything to go by, there’s not much hope for the Allans.
Corinna Russell had a bike stolen from her property back in January and is yet to have it found.
“The cops haven’t traced it yet and I haven’t heard anything more,” said Russell. “It’s an open file so the investigation is still ongoing.”
Russell’s bike that was stolen was also a BMX and was custom made with blue handle grips, blue metal pedals, blue rims and white in colour.
