January 6, 1960
The Beer Warehousing Company’s store at Carleton Place was held up by armed bandits on Saturday morning a few minutes after it opened at 10 o’clock. Two men entered, and one pulled a gun ordering the three attendants to lie face down on the floor. The two thugs then went in behind the counter, opened the cash register and helped themselves to what was in it. In the end they took off with between $3,000 and $3,500.
As the men did not wear masks it is obvious to the police that theywere strangers from a distance. It is thought that at least one other man stayed outside for the getaway. A green car was seen leaving the vicinity immediately afterward. The police are working on the case but if they have any clues naturally they are not divulging them.
Cases like this are difficult to crack because the men are probably members of the underworld in some big city and no local man needs to case a beer warehouse after the New Year business. All such stores open at a given time and no precautions can be taken against armed robbery.
This is the first instance of a beer warehouse being held up in Lanark County. The one at Perth was burglarized twice. In each case the safe was blown in the night when the noise of a passing train disguised the sound of the explosion.
While the Carleton Place Chief of Police was not available when the Gazette made inquiries about the hold-up on Wednesday morning, it is believed that all the money taken could not have been in the cash register. It was too much, and likely only enough was taken from the safe to start the day’s business.
If the safe was open and empty the money must have been put in some other so-called safe place. But no place is safe when a man “has a gun on anyone who does not want to be a dead hero’.
Also read-The Big Beer Store Heist in Carleton Place
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