By CRISTINE MEIXNER

Editor

LAKE PLEASANT—Police are investigating a string of burglaries that took place the night of Friday, Aug. 20.

Common Grounds Café, Lake Pleasant Golf and the Veterans of Foreign Wars post here as well as Mountain Memories in Wells were all burglarized; along with five businesses in Schroon Lake, Essex County; and Black Bear Restaurant in Pottersville in Warren County.

In each case only cash was taken.

Lisa Swift of Common Grounds Café said about $200 was taken. The thief or thieves pried open her front door and her cash register, ruining it.

Mike O’Rourke of Lake Pleasant Golf says he lost $800. Again, the cash register was pried open. He thinks entry was gained by popping the latch on the back door.

“You don’t expect something like this here so you’re not prepared,” he said. “Now we’ll be prepared.”

Donna Bureau at Mountain Memories said her back door was pried open and $500 in cash taken from two cash draws, a cash box and a tip jar.

“I just had a new burglar alarm system installed Wednesday [Aug. 18],” she said. “I wasn’t used to it and didn’t arm it correctly.”

“I have left the doors unlocked so many times and find people came in and shopped and left the money and a note on the counter,” she said. “You just don’t think something like this is going to happen here.”

According to Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office (HCSO) the VFW lost about $150.

HCSO deputies William Wilt and Corey Hutchins are working on the investigation along with Warren County Sheriff’s Office and New York State Police. They are all sharing information, according to Sheriff Karl Abrams.

“No fingerprints were left at the scenes,” Hutchins said Monday. “There are matching pry marks, they hit the registers and got out fast.

“One business in Schroon Lake had cameras trained on its register, and they broke the cameras first.”

Hutchins said Monday it is possible a vehicle connected with the crimes was caught on videotape. The tape will be sent to the State Police Crime Lab in Albany to see if its resolution can be improved, he said.

Anyone with any possible information is asked to call HCSO at 548-3113.

HCSO does have a possible eyewitness.

Salvatore Miciotta lives across Rt. 8 from Lake Pleasant Golf. He says he noticed a small, light-colored, four-door car at the clubhouse at about 1 a.m. Saturday, Aug. 21.

It pulled in with its lights off and left the same way, he said. Local young people often stop at the clubhouse during the night to use the soda machines there.

Miciotta is a former detective of the New York Police Department. He spent five years as an undercover narcotics agent and 13 years as a detective.

He says the string of thefts will work against the perpetrator(s). “The more they do the more information you get,” he said.