A local baker has made an urgent plea to the public -- stop stealing my trays.

Cake Shop Ltd. co-owner Pete Kehrli explained that the plastic trays he uses to transport his bakery products to local stores and restaurants were disappearing from those locations.

They then pop up at different locations around the Island where people in other businesses are using them for other purposes.

And he claimed that these thefts were costing him thousands of dollars.

"I brought 800 new trays into the Island just one week before Easter and out of those I've lost 320 already,'' Mr. Kehrli said.

"By the time the trays are bought and landed here they cost me around $12 apiece. The older ones I had, which kept getting stolen, were more expensive at around $20 each.'' While aware of where the trays are ending up -- many fishermen find them particularly useful -- Mr. Kehrli pointed out that he did not have the time to go chasing after them.

It is not as if people taking the trays do not know who they belong to either, he pointed out.

"All the trays are marked clearly with a stamp saying for the Cake Shop use only,'' he said.

"People just don't consider taking my trays stealing, but in my opinion what they're doing is stealing.

"The trays are rightfully mine and the Cake Shop's.'' And on occasion when he has confronted people in possession of his trays with the fact that they are stolen, the situation has turned quite nasty.

In one instance, he claimed, he came across 25 trays in a man's yard.

He said he pointed out that the trays were his and they were stamped The Cake Shop.

The man said they had been his for years and accused Mr. Kehrli of trespassing and threatened to call the Police.

Mr. Kehrli told him to go ahead.

"But of course he didn't and when I called the Police and told them to go around to the house, they arrived there only to discover that there were no trays,'' Mr. Kehrli recalled. "The man had moved them and hidden them.'' He appealed to the public to "do the right thing'' and return his trays to his bakery at Curving Avenue in Pembroke.

CRIME CRM