There was a steady stream of customers at Stawnichy’s Mundare Sausage on Friday, coming in and out of a brand-new door that replaced one destroyed in an after-hours break-in.

It’s been a long, busy two days after two thieves busted into the store on Wednesday night. Stawnichy’s says in their nearly 70 years of business, they’ve never had a break-in until this week.

“I think we’ve been kind of lucky that it hadn’t happened for so many decades,” said Kyler Zeleny, assistant general manager and a member of the Stawnichy family that runs the beloved small business in eastern Alberta.

Stawnichy’s has operated in Mundare, Alta., about an hour east of Edmonton, for decades and is famous for its Ukrainian garlic sausage, or kielbasa.

So much so, the town populated by descendants of Ukrainian homesteaders is also home to the world’s largest sausage statue — a 42-foot-tall replica of the millions of links the company produced and sold since the 1960s.

“Nobody can top their kielbasa,” said long-time customer Sharon Ewasiw, who drove over from Lamont on Friday morning to stock up on sausage. “Nobody — the best in Alberta.”

Ewasiw and several other ladies were stocking up for this weekend’s for Orthodox Easter celebrations.

“Pepperoni, kielbasa, ham, paprika, bacon,” said June Tichkowsky, listing off her grocery list.

“Garlic — can’t forget the garlic — and radishes and onions and cheese,” Ewasiw piped in.

The ladies explained their bounty all goes into a basket they take to church to be blessed before this weekend’s dinner. It’s an annual event that, this year, came with a little more excitement than normal following the store being broken into.

RCMP responded to a business alarm on Wednesday around 11:45 p.m., after two thieves smashed in the front door window and broke in.

Security camera video shows them jumping over the front counter, grabbing the cash register and yanking it free from its electric cords before fleeing out the broken door.

“They did some really quick kind of counter-top hopping. They did about three — looked very parkour-esque — and they grabbed our cash machine, and went out the front door,” Zeleny said.

“They were in here for about six seconds.”

However, the thieves perhaps didn’t make off with as much moolah as they hoped.

“Like most businesses — and if there’s any criminals listening — there’s usually no cash in registers,” Zeleny said, explaining there was just a bunch of quarters and dimes in the machine.

“So if you see anyone or hear anyone with about $80 worth of change in their pockets — that might be our culprits.”

However, the thieves did cause several thousands dollars in damage to the store.

“The smaller the business, the harder it is for them to kind of absorb those costs,” Zeleny said.

Zeleny said he showed up early Thursday morning with his dad to board up the front door and window.

“Those become very long nights for small businesses and then trying to figure out how to open the next day.

“So they get $90, but we have to pay for $4,000 or $5,000 worth of damage.”

Thankfully, they had a spare door and helping hands to get things back into working order once the sun came up.

“In small towns, we try to look out for one another.”

The stolen cash register was found broken and ditched in a snowbank, Zeleny said, so a new cash register was acquired. A glass company from Vegreville got the ball rolling on replacing smashed glass.

“Within one day, it didn’t really look like we had been broken into.”

Zeleny fears if thieves broke in once, they might do it again — either at Stawnichy’s or another small business.

“We don’t want them in our communities, we don’t want them coming back. And we want to see justice for places like this,” he said.

“I hope they realize the amount of damage they’ve done to only get $80 worth of coinage, maybe not to do it again — but we’re kind of hoping that we can figure out who the culprits were.”

To that end, the family business — with grandma’s approval — is now offering 100 rings of their Mundare sausage for the person who helps find the suspects.

“We offered, with Baba Jane’s blessing, we can give 100 free rings of sausage to anyone who can help us find who these individuals are,” Zeleny said.

“That’s nearly $1,000 worth of good quality, local product.”

RCMP said the recovered cash register will be analysed by Alberta RCMP forensic identification services.

Police are searching for two suspects.

Suspect one was wearing:
• Red hoodie with a black sweater with white stripes down the arms and white writing on the back
• Black track pants with stipes
• Red gloves
• Red mask
• Black baseball hat
• Red running shoes
• Believed to be between five feet, eight inches and six feet, two inches tall, with an average build

Suspect two was wearing:
• Grey/ Dark green jacket
• Grey pants
• Grey running shoes with a white bottom
• Grey gloves
• Black mask with a white pattern
• Believed to be between five feet, six inches and six feet tall, with an average build

 

Vegreville RCMP is also requesting the public’s assistance for dash camera footage, or surveillance footage in the areas between 51  and 53 avenues along 50 Street in Mundare, from between April 8  at 11:30 p.m. and 12:30 a.m. on April 9.

Anyone with footage that appears helpful, or has know who may have committed the crime, is asked to contact Vegreville RCMP at 780-631-2750.

Anonymous tips can also be submitted to Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 (TIPS) or online.

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