‘It’s devastating’: Local business owners looking for theft suspect, say nearly 10K was stolen
Local business owners are doing their own detective work to help find their stolen mobile business trailer.
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The Greenhouse Bar is a plant shop on wheels that also sells other items, and new videos and photos show what’s believed to be the SUV that drove off with it.
“We came home around 3:30; the trailer was still there. We left for dinner, we got home around 8 and the trailer was gone,” Lauren Henry said.
The Greenhouse Bar is run by Jennifer Ness and Lauren Henry, who sell plants, pottery and T-shirts at local markets. They said their trailer was stolen from their Avondale home around 6:30 p.m. Saturday. The trailer and its contents represent a loss of roughly $10,000.
“That’s how we built our name, our business and our brand, and seeing it taken like that is a hard blow, it’s devastating. It represents our hustle and our passion for the business,” Ness said.
“We wouldn’t have survived COVID without that trailer,” Henry said.
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New videos and pictures given to Action News Jax show their trailer attached to the suspected SUV going through a nearby neighborhood and passing business cameras near St. Johns Avenue, around the same time they said it was taken.
“A trailer is very easy to move and put it [on] another vehicle. We think that’s what happened and with each passing day it gets further and further away from us,” Ness said.
Action News Jax’s law and safety expert, Dale Carson, said trailer theft is common.
“In the United States, there are criminals who focus on stealing trailers. Tires are valuable, the pieces of the trailers that can be cut up and reutilized are valuable and it’s a low apprehension crime,” he said.
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Ness and Henry sent Action News Jax an email from the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office saying the SUV had been found but the trailer hadn’t been. JSO told us no arrests have been made and the trailer is still missing, we did ask about what happened after the SUV was found but haven’t heard back yet. The two filed a police report, which we also have requested and are waiting on.
Ness and Henry are opening a brick-and-mortar shop in the Brooklyn/Riverside area and still plan to use the mobile trailer if it’s recovered. They’re aiming for a September grand opening, but that could be pushed back now.
“We’re a small business of just us. A lot of that was personal money we funded ourselves. And small businesses, any type of loss is a big loss,” Ness said.
A Go Fund Me has been set up to help with the loss, and on Friday their coffee vendor will be setting up shop outside the brick-and-mortar location and all proceeds will go to The Greenhouse Bar.
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