DENVER (KDVR) — Local small business owner Jessica Sparzak was yet again another target of crime in the Denver area after the catalytic converter from her company’s mobile flower truck was stolen.
“You can see where it was cut. There are wires still hanging. It’s very easy to realize that’s what was stolen,” Sparzak said.
She said that Saturday morning, one of her employees went in to take the Pickletown Flower Co. truck up to Golden for the day to sell flowers, when the employee noticed the truck was having a hard time going and it was really loud. She quickly realized the catalytic converter had been stolen.
“This one felt like the tipping point for me. I just sat there in a daze thinking, how much more can we go through? And how much can we shell out financially?” Sparzak said.
She said the building where they work and park the truck in a gated area is still going through video to figure out exactly when the theft happened. She is planning on filing a police report once that video is found.
But Sparzak felt this theft was another setback after just a few months ago, a thief attempted to steal the company’s pedicab, which was transformed into an electric flower bike to sell around town.
“I sat there and bawled my eyeballs out,” Sparzak said.
Luckily, video cameras in the garage where the flower bike was parked caught the thief. Because the electric bike was dead, the thief wasn’t able to push it up the hill and out the gate to successfully take it.
“It was such a relief to find it all in one piece,” Sparzak said.
Sparzak is expecting to pay at least $3,000 to replace to the catalytic converter.
She has started a GoFundMe to help.