Burglars broke into the Silver Dollar Saloon in Bellevue sometime early Saturday and made off with an approximately 150-pound safe, an unspecified amount of money inside the safe and a pack of cigarettes, saloon owner Pete Prekeges said Monday.
The burglary took place sometime after the popular Main Street bar closed after business Friday night, likely between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. Saturday morning, Prekeges said. He wouldn't say exactly how much money was stolen, but said it was roughly in the thousands of dollars.
A cleaning person who arrived at the bar at 6:15 a.m. discovered the back door to the bar standing open, Prekeges said. "They used a crow bar to open the back door," he said.
The only evidence the burglars left behind was the crow bar with a sticker still attached, Prekeges said. Fortunately, the burglars didn't cause any additional damage to the premises, he said.
Prekeges said Saturday nonetheless turned out to be a good business day for him, likely because of a ski-joring event held near Bellevue that he and several other Bellevue business owners helped sponsor. "We're very lucky that no damage was done to the bar so we could get back in business on Saturday," he said.
"We didn't miss a beat," he added. "We're not going to let (thieves) ruin our day."
The burglary was the first he's personally experienced, Prekeges said. Still, he said past experience has shown him that when burglars break into businesses and find little of monetary value to steal they often get upset and proceed to destroy the place.
"Then you're out twice as much," Prekeges said.
Prekeges, who purchased the Silver Dollar Saloon on Jan. 18, said he didn't have a security system installed before the burglary took place Saturday. "I should have done it," he said.
Bellevue Marshal Tim Green said the burglary is under investigation. He said while there haven't been any similar incidents in Bellevue recently, his officers are calling around to other area police departments to see if they've had any similar reports.
Green said the size of the safe may indicate that more than one person took part in the burglary. "I wouldn't think one person would do something like that themselves, but you never know," he said.
Anyone with information on the burglary is being asked to contact Green at 788-3692.
