Man chased down brazen thief, wants Peugeot to go home

IT'S a Cinderella story complete with a knight in a pickup truck, except Marty Halprin isn't looking for the owner of a lost shoe.

Instead, the jewelry store owner is looking for the Winnipeg woman with the key that fits the lock on a turquoise Peugeot bike he rescued from a thief Friday morning.

The Celia's Jewellery owner was in his truck at the corner of Smith Street and York Avenue about 11 a.m. when he saw a man about 30 years old knock over a steel pole on the north side of York. The thief then dragged away a 10-speed bike that had been chained to the pole.

That's when Halprin pulled up alongside.

"I couldn't believe what I was seeing," said Halprin, 59, an avid biker who's cycled for over four decades and isn't shy about calling himself a rabble-rouser.

The man dropped the bike and took off on foot after Halprin gestured he was going to get out his truck.

"I guess he didn't want to get involved with me and he was having trouble with the bike, so he just left," he said.

Halprin then put the bike in the back of his truck and took it home for safekeeping.

"Whoever (the bike owner) is obviously had to walk home from wherever she worked. I'd sure like to meet her, find her, and give her her bike back."

The Peugeot's about 20 to 25 years old and still has a cable locking its front wheel and frame together. Its fender was twisted like "spaghetti" after the attempted theft.

"He just figured that (he had) every right to take this bike," he said.

He's confident he'll know he has the rightful owner when he finds the woman whose key fits into the lock.

A sign Halprin put near the intersection with his name and number -- as well as information about the theft -- has so far gone unanswered.

Halprin said he's shocked the thief tried such a brazen theft in the middle of busy downtown, and that people nearby didn't intervene.

"I know how sick it feels to go to where your bike was and it's gone," he said. "It's a sick feeling."

gabriellegiroday@freepress.mb.ca

Businessman foils bike theft

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/manitoba/story/2010/06/08/man-bike-theft-owner-foils-halprin.html

A Winnipeg business owner is hunting for the owner of a bicycle that he stopped from being stolen in the city's downtown late last week.

On Friday, Marty Halprin was passing by the corner of York Avenue and Smith Street when he spotted a man furiously rocking a parking sign out of place to steal a 10-speed bike that was locked to it.

Halprin, an avid cyclist who has been the victim of bike theft in the past, said he had to step in and stop what was happening. He pulled his car up next to the man.

But the would-be thief kept on tugging at the pole, eventually lifting it and dragging the bike away.

"I pull up a little further as he's moving," Halprin said. "I open my car door to get out. And then he decides it just not worth it.

"This was 11 a.m. Everybody was ignoring this guy. Friday. Nobody seemed to care," Halprin said.

The thief eventually dropped the bike and ran off. Halprin snatched it up and took it to his store — Celia's Jewelry at 194 Osborne St.

He's appealing for the rightful owner of the bike, which is light blue in colour, to come forward and collect it as long as the person has the right key to unlock it.

"I'd like to give it back to them," Halprin said.

He refuses to think that he did anything extraordinary, saying he feels that simply ignoring thieves sends the wrong message.

"That's why people are getting away with what they're getting away with," Halprin said.