SNOHOMISH, Wash. — While you’re helping yourselves to cake, thieves in Snohomish County are helping themselves to your belongings.
Wedding venues have been the targets of car prowls in the city of Snohomish and victims are out thousands of dollars in damage and stolen property.
Sarah Swanson found her slippers, but this is no Cinderella story.
Her shoes were apparently the only thing thieves discarded when they shattered both passenger side windows of Sarah’s vehicle and stole everything valuable inside.
The wedding planner’s SUV had been parked at Dairyland in Snohomish.
“I had my work bag with my iPad, my purse, a set of house keys, my wallet that had all our credit cards, insurance cards, photos of my family, prescription medication, everything,” Sarah recounted.
Snohomish has at least two dozen wedding venues, making it a very popular place to get hitched.
When there’s a wedding, there’s a parking lot full of cars, often with personal belongings inside them that are seemingly safer there than they would be in the wedding venue.
“I can't tell you how many weddings we walked away from where a guest stole gift cards, a purse, somebody's phone -- whereas you don't hear about this as often,” Sarah explained.
The same weekend Sarah’s vehicle was hit, two others in the Dairyland parking lot were ransacked as well.
That weekend, there was a car prowl at nearby Thomas Family Farms, which is also a wedding venue.
“It’s very frustrating for me. If somebody comes to me to say they’ve gotten their car broken into, it’s bad for everyone,” explained farm owner Marvin Thomas.
Right now they’re operating a pumpkin patch and haunted house, events at which car break-ins do happen from time to time.
But, Marvin says, weddings are the bigger issue, so his team positions a golf cart at the only entrance.
I’ll have one of the boys or me check the people in.
I’ll stay there. The gate will actually shut if you want it to,” Marvin told us.
Sarah is glad some venues are taking those extra precautions. A wedding should be a fairy tale.
“It’s a very violating feeling. Until you’ve been through it, you don’t realize how violated you feel,” Sarah concluded.
We asked the Snohomish County Sheriff's Office and they confirmed that weddings and even funerals are attractive to thieves because vehicles are left unattended for several hours.
And car prowls happen fast. Sarah said she went out to her car at 5 p.m. and it was fine. By 5:50 p.m., someone had already used her credit card in Monroe.
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