Rubin: Trailer theft at Fowling Warehouse in Ypsilanti was particularly nervy

Neal Rubin, Detroit Free Press
Updated ·4 min read
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Most any theft is brazen, when you think about it, but the one at the Fowling Warehouse in Ypsilanti was particularly nervy. And it was barely the worst part of Scott Brown's 12 hours.

"The trailer," he said, "was just the icing."

The trailer is a black Stealth 1600, replete with the Fowling Warehouse name and logo in white and otherwise identifiable with a dented left fender and a bullet hole that mysteriously appeared one morning in the left rear door.

Whoever stole it, Brown reasoned, "will have to do a lot of work to make it invisible. I don't know if they really thought this one through."

Fowling Warehouse co-owner Scott Brown stands by a chain and cut lock where a 16-foot-long trailer was stolen from the Fowling Warehouse in Ypsilanti spot where it was parked on Friday, November 3, 2023. Two thieves pulled into the parking lot of the Fowling Warehouse Ypsi Ann Arbor in a U-Haul truck and helped themselves to the business' 16-foot-long trailer, identifiable by the name and logo on the side and the bullet hole in the left rear door.

Brown, 62, is the manager and co-owner of the Fowling Warehouse, a jumbo bar and fowling playground serving Ypsi and Ann Arbor that shares a former Farmer Jack grocery store with a fitness center on Washtenaw Avenue.

"Fowling," for those who haven't partaken, rhymes with bowling, which is what it's based on. The object is to knock down regulation bowling pins, but with a football rather than a weighty rolling orb.

Like bowling, it goes well with beer, or with a refreshing soft drink, if that's your preference or age group. Unlike bowling, it also goes well with picnics, festivals and tailgates.

That's why Brown and his partners own a trailer — or at least used to.

Fowling Warehouse front desk worker Carsyn Bruns throws a football while playing against a co-worker while waiting for customers shortly after opening on Friday, Nov. 3, 2023, at the business in Ypsilanti.
Fowling Warehouse front desk worker Carsyn Bruns throws a football while playing against a co-worker while waiting for customers shortly after opening on Friday, Nov. 3, 2023, at the business in Ypsilanti.

A parade of problems

On Oct. 23, a Monday, Brown and his wife, Patty, took their son to HopCat in Royal Oak for young Calvin's 27th birthday. All was grand until someone pulled a fire alarm and they had to troop outside for 45 minutes in the cold — though on the plus side, the restaurant comped their Cosmik Fries.

Arriving home afterward, Brown discovered that someone had tapped into his email account and used it to hijack his Facebook page. Not only did that mean the loss of 4,000 followers, the page was tied to two credit cards that the hacker misappropriated to place $9,000 worth of online ads for commemorative gold coins. In a jolt of extra jerkishness, the hacker placed one of the ads on the Fowling Warehouse's page.

Then came the trailer, or rather, there it went.

At 5:22 a.m. on the 24th, two men with advanced driving and thieving aptitude backed a U-Haul box truck to the trailer, using a route and angles that concealed their license plate from security cameras.

Security footage captured the passenger in a U-Haul truck helping to steal the Fowling Warehouse’s 16-foot trailer in the pre-dawn hours of Oct. 24. The thieves managed to keep the truck’s license plate averted from the cameras.
Security footage captured the passenger in a U-Haul truck helping to steal the Fowling Warehouse’s 16-foot trailer in the pre-dawn hours of Oct. 24. The thieves managed to keep the truck’s license plate averted from the cameras.

Inside five minutes, they cut through the lock on a chain wrapped around a light pole, hitched up the trailer and vanished.

A 2023 model similar to the 16-footer that's missing retails for as much as $12,500. A gentleman in Lake Orion bought one new in 2020 to take his motorcycles and his new wife to the annual Sturgis, South Dakota, Motorcycle Rally.

She hated everything about the experience except her husband, and his status was borderline. “You sell that trailer right now,” she said, and the Fowling Warehouse picked it up in 2021 for only $6,650.

“It was a steal,” Brown said.

More from Neal Rubin: Brothers behind 92-year-old Warholak Tire Service in Detroit are getting out of business

Roots of the game

Fowling traces its roots to a band of chronic Indy 500 tailgaters who concocted ever more outrageous lawn games every year.

Scott Boisvert, left, of Brooklyn, N.Y., and teammate Max Smith, of Ann Arbor, set up pins before playing another game at the Fowling Warehouse in Ypsilanti on Friday, Nov. 3, 2023.
Scott Boisvert, left, of Brooklyn, N.Y., and teammate Max Smith, of Ann Arbor, set up pins before playing another game at the Fowling Warehouse in Ypsilanti on Friday, Nov. 3, 2023.

In 2001, Brown said, they built a bowling alley, only to discover that the balls behave erratically when the lane isn't completely level, and that unstopped 16-pound balls are not popular with adjoining race fans. At one point, someone brought out a football, or maybe a football arrived unannounced, and, by the end of the weekend, rules were in place.

A Detroit-based reveler, Chris Hutt, saw the potential and launched a deliberately gritty facility in 2014 in a former industrial space in Hamtramck. For Brown, whose background is in advertising and media, it was love at first throw.

After spending the pandemic beating the former Farmer Jack into shape, he and the partners opened 18 months ago. They have 20 lanes, endless television screens, and no food. Feel free to bring your own, or order it from one of dozens of college-town restaurants, but they're concentrating on games and beverages.

The red pin in the center of the layout is the quickest but most difficult path to triumph in fowling. Knocking it down on the first throw of the game, while leaving the other nine standing, is called a Bonk, and results in immediate victory.
The red pin in the center of the layout is the quickest but most difficult path to triumph in fowling. Knocking it down on the first throw of the game, while leaving the other nine standing, is called a Bonk, and results in immediate victory.

Spreading the gospel of fowling, Brown said, they hauled the trailer to Eastern Michigan University sporting events, charity cotillions, car shows, food truck rallies, graduation parties and just about anyplace else they could park. It held five lanes, 10 sets of pins, five footballs, tents, banners, chairs, hopes, dreams and whoops of joy.

He’s picturing it all piled in a field someplace, dumped by bandits who only wanted a trailer with vinyl stickers and residue that’ll take a sandblaster to remove.

The Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Department is investigating, he said; a deputy didn’t return calls from the Free Press to explain how fervently.

“The fowling community,” Brown said, “is really angry that it got stolen.”

Katelyn Boisvert, of Ann Arbor, prepares to throw a football with teammate Wes Boisvert, of Portland, Oregon, during a game at the Fowling Warehouse in Ypsilanti on Friday, Nov. 3, 2023.
Katelyn Boisvert, of Ann Arbor, prepares to throw a football with teammate Wes Boisvert, of Portland, Oregon, during a game at the Fowling Warehouse in Ypsilanti on Friday, Nov. 3, 2023.

As for Brown, he'll cheerfully pour a pint for anyone who can direct the authorities to what the business called its MFU, for Mobile Fowling Unit. At this point, though, he's trying to be philosophical.

That’s the way the ball bounces — but next time, he'll buy a sturdier lock.

Neal Rubin figures that if flag football is an Olympic sport, fowling can't be far behind. Reach him at NARubin@freepress.com.

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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Trailer stolen at Fowling Warehouse in Ypsilanti