West Seattle Crime Watch: Thief plucks Junction flower baskets

| Crime | West Seattle news

The big beautiful flower baskets in The Junction are eye-catching – and thief-attracting. This Crime Watch reader report is from West Seattle Junction Association director Susan Melrose:

The West Seattle Junction Association is asking our community to help with neighborhood watch.

Each year our organization purchases and maintains almost 100 lovely flower baskets to bring beauty to our business district. Our vendor is a West Seattle company who creates unique arrangements and cares for them throughout the season. Taking place on multiple occasions during the last month, we’ve had a total of six of our baskets stolen. The most recent theft was last week, and we have cause to believe that all the baskets were taken by the same person. Since the stolen flower baskets are valued over $1000, an investigation has been opened and SPD is taking leads.

If you see, or have seen, a flower basket that you think may have been taken from The Junction, please report to our office and SPD will follow up. Please consider that these are very large flower baskets. They are not typically seen in residential areas and would probably stand out if displayed. It is also possible that the thief has been trying to sell them. Any information can be shared with Junction Association Director Susan Melrose at 206-935-0904 or susan@wsjunction.org. Thank you.

WSince86 September 10, 2014 (6:04 pm)

Whaaaaat? That is the lowest of low!!! Should be easy to spot such a beautiful addition to someone’s garden. Of course I could never imagine a fellow gardener doing such a ridiculous thing!!!

Chuck & Sally's Van Man September 10, 2014 (6:30 pm)

Sorry to hear this. Those baskets are a true mark of civic pride and to this wannabe basket grower, a thing of wonder. As in, I WONDER how the hell they do that! Yeah, those did not come from Home Depot, no doubt… I hope they catch the petunia pilferer before another pansy gets pinched. And on a more serious note, I’ll offer up this idea to the WS Junction Association: Ask your vendor to give classes on how to design and grow these divine arrangements. Charge for said classes. I know I’d be interested, and you may find your baskets pay for themselves on some level. They really are spectacular and I bet a lot of folks would take that class. I hope you find the punk(s) and sentence them to 20 months of turning over the compost pile. In the rain.

CanDo September 10, 2014 (6:47 pm)

Seriously? Do we have to nail down our flower baskets now? It really IS a low down, dirty rotten crime.

wsres September 10, 2014 (7:01 pm)

No shop cameras caught that? Very surprising.

Jason September 10, 2014 (7:15 pm)

Any specific days/time ranges? Can the assoc. Share the locations of the ones stolen?

timh2o September 10, 2014 (7:35 pm)

Maybe they can be secured with cables? Light weight easy to secure.

JoB September 10, 2014 (8:03 pm)

i like chuck and sally’s van man’s suggestions to the Junctions Association… i’d pay for that class.
.

heather September 10, 2014 (8:26 pm)

Are you kidding me?

Chrisd September 10, 2014 (8:31 pm)

Sad that people need to do this. Let’s get ’em Susan.

C September 10, 2014 (8:38 pm)

I would love to take a class too!

WS September 10, 2014 (9:47 pm)

Terribly sad- junction assoc please do something about safety in the junction in general. Besides this sad incident, things have been bad for a couple
years now. aggressive pan handling including harassment if you don’t give any money- people urinating at business entries and it just seems to get worse.

m September 10, 2014 (10:14 pm)

So sorry to hear about this! Those stunning baskets lift my spirits every time I’m in the Junction. And such an impractical thing to steal.

Skittles4Marshawn September 10, 2014 (10:52 pm)

The proposed class sounds like so much fun! It’s extraordinarily sad that someone would steal these baskets. How pathetic. Although it doesn’t make me feel unsafe, necessarily…just angry!

NW September 10, 2014 (11:12 pm)

Very unfortunate about the baskets have enjoyed them over the years. Per WS’s comment I have noticed The Junction change and take a different turn over the years one thing I do is pickup up litter if I see it and sponsor a cigarette butt container to improve its image since neither business provided and it’s getting used.

JoB September 11, 2014 (6:53 am)

WS..
i am guessing panhandlers didn’t steal the baskets..
they have no place to hang them.

sophista-tiki September 11, 2014 (7:54 am)

There was a rash of plant thefts on Beacon Hill a couple of yrs ago.One of my old neighbors had every bonzai tree her late husbands cultivated stolen from her back yard.They steal potted plants and even dig up ornamental tees right out of peoples yards.Cant have anything nice anymore without someone helping themselves for their own agenda. Anything and everything they can get their hands on is up for grabs especially since there seem to be no actual consequences for their crimes.

cid September 11, 2014 (8:12 am)

Good grief! Surely someone saw this or a camera caught the thief in action. BTW did they ever get the person who kicked out the Discovery Shop window?

Jim P September 11, 2014 (12:27 pm)

Check the local dumpsters too, sometimes this is just simple vandalism or drunken idiocy. (Not that it makes it any less of crime in my book.)

There are people who just cannot leave nice things in place without defacing, destroying or stealing them.

Wiring them in place or even making sure they have an identifying splotch of paint or a label on the underside or something to make it objectively easy to prove it is yours and was stolen to avid the “I *found* this abandoned on the street with no obvious owner so I took it home” type of claim.

Nanaofecho September 11, 2014 (2:29 pm)

Ah yes…another example of the “new face of West Seattle”. We live in The Junction area and now face the reality of sirens every hour or so, tagging on all our buildings and the most undesirable looking people walking our streets. Perhaps we should change our name from West Seattle to White Center Annex, where apparently they welcome this kind of ilk!

WSB September 11, 2014 (2:33 pm)

No, they don’t. We’ve covered White Center for six years on our smaller, pro-bono site whitecenternow.com and it has as many caring people fighting for a better community as does West Seattle. As for sirens every hour – you’ll hear them often because West Seattle’s main fire station is at 37th/Alaska and dispatches to all but the smallest calls, wherever they are in WS (and sometimes beyond). – TR

HelperMonkey September 11, 2014 (3:47 pm)

“undesirable looking people walking our streets” “white center…welcomes this kind of ilk” (sic) – wow, sounds like someone would be happier on the lily white east side. bon voyage!

G September 11, 2014 (5:49 pm)

The Eastside might have been monochrome decades ago but that certainly is not the case anymore. In fact, West Seattle is more homogenous than many areas of Bellevue.

NW September 11, 2014 (5:50 pm)

So nanaofecho just curious you seem to obviously have complaints about the area are you yourself doing anything in the way of providing a solution such as the tagging you mentioned? Their is a neighborhood group which meets monthly in the junction neighborhood have you brought your concerns to them? How long have you actually lived here?

WSB September 11, 2014 (5:56 pm)

And in fact, they meet next Tuesday, 6:30 pm, Senior Center – that would be the Junction Neighborhood Organization, JuNO. All welcome!

Alphonse September 11, 2014 (6:25 pm)

It’s beyond laughable that someone living in the Junction has a superiority complex. I hope I’m not one of those undesirable looking people walking Nanaofecho’s formerly pristine streets. To be honest, sometimes I just don’t have time to change into one of my Chanel suits before I go up to Poggie’s or Be’s.

getoutmore September 11, 2014 (8:50 pm)

While I agree with HelperMonkey’s snark, the east side is hardly lily white anymore. For realz.

m September 11, 2014 (11:48 pm)

@ nanaofecho – your comment is so outrageous and offensive, I don’t even know how to begin to respond.

AJP September 12, 2014 (8:59 am)

Holy crap I hope that’s just a troll. If not, thanks for not coming to White Center, your kind of ilk is not welcome.

WSFoodie September 12, 2014 (10:59 am)

It’s funny, I’ve made the comment several times that I’d love to snag one of those beautiful hanging baskets (i would never) but anyone who saw it in my yard would immediately know it was stolen and from where. Every year those baskets are just gorgeous. I love the idea of a class as a revenue generator – maybe to pay for cables to secure the baskets. Good idea Chuck & Sally’s.

Sorry, comment time is over.