There is a donation box thief on the loose, and the mayor is offering a $250 dollar reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the culprit.
A town employee discovered the donation box at the hot springs had been forced open after checking the box for money Friday morning, said Mayor John Zeiger.
Saratoga police verified someone had cut the hasp using bolt cutters in order to take the money from the box. The incident could have occurred any time during the week, said Sgt. Robert Bifano.
“It’s frustrating,” Zeiger said. “We use those donations for the upkeep down there.”
This is not the first time someone had stolen from the hot pool’s donation box, Zeiger said.
Zeiger can remember at least three other times in the past five years where someone had taken from the box.
Bifano said he could only remember two or three instances where someone had stolen from the hot pool’s box, but there is more than one donation site in Saratoga.
Overall, property destruction and larceny around donation sites has been a problem, Bifano said.
Someone once stole an entire steel donation box located at the dog park.
“It was a huge steel box cemented into the ground they couldn’t get into. They actually hauled it out of the ground with a truck,” Bifano said. “They’ll stop at nothing to get these donation boxes.”
The culprits were never found, but the box was found in a field about one year later.
Anyone caught stealing from a donation sight could face six months in jail and a $750 fine, Bifano said.
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