Dozens of compound bows worth about $35,000 total were stolen from a Lewisville archery store early Friday morning.
All Star Archery & Marine has been operating at its Lewisville location for about six years and has never had a burglary with a loss of merchandise compared to this past week, according to store marketing director Kelly Blackall.
"We've had alarms go off before here and there, and it's always the wind or something kicked the door. You just don't expect things like this to happen to you," Blackall said.
The store was broken into early Friday morning, according to Lewisville police. Video surveillance from the gun range next door to All Star Archery & Marine shows a white truck taking off just before 6 a.m.
Police said the person or people responsible for the burglary were in the store for six minutes.
The compound bows were manufactured by five major brands, according to Blackall: Mathews, Hoyt, Bowtech, PSE and Mission. It's a tough hit for a small business, she said.
"Hopefully we'll get some more stock before the Christmas season really picks up, but yeah, all of those bows that we potentially could have sold -- that we typically do sell -- right before Christmas, we're not going to have right now," Blackall said. "They're all outfitted to each individual bow hunter, so we are selling gift cards right now. We're hoping that will be a good alternative for right now. We have another shop in Dallas, so we're getting some of their inventory in."
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Bart Hirneise has been shopping at the store for about two years and was looking for a compound bow for his son.
"I wasn't sure how bad it was or how much they got hit. They got it pretty bad," Hirneise said. "It actually makes me want to shop here more, because I know they got hit. They're local. It makes me want to shop here more than maybe somewhere else."
Other store regulars, like Hazel Hughes, said they were surprised to hear what happened.
"I mean, they're a small shop. Mom and pop. All of the people that come in here are usually super cool," Hughes said. "We've been in here so many times and the caliber of the people that come in here -- everybody's here to hunt, do their thing, enjoy the sport. It's just weird."
Support from regulars, and even strangers online, sharing their post about what happened is what Blackall said they were thankful for. The post had been shared more than 1,200 times as of Saturday evening.
"We've had other local archery shops keeping an eye out. We have all the serial numbers for the bows taken, so we're looking for them on other sites -- eBay, Craigslist, things like that. We're trying to look out for those," she said.
If a deal for a bow sounds too good to be true, they're asking the public to retrieve the serial number and contact the store.
"If you see a bow, you know, averaging from $1,200 and someone's trying to get rid of it for $500, [that] might be a red flag," she said.
The store can be reached at 469-549-1850. The Lewisville Police Department can be reached at 972-219-3600.
