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Show Editorial Lock or Lose There was a time in Park City when you could leave your house unlocked. A time when you could leave your skis on your front porch while you ate lunch. A time when you could have faith that your property was safe. But now, if you want to hold on to your valuables, you had better snap out of it: the old days, as they say, are all gone. Recently, that was made painfully apparent by a rash of car and condo burglaries that had the professional touch. Here we are, be we vacationers or residents, with all of our expensive toys, our jewels, cash, skis and cameras. Our stereos, color televisions and various other stuff. And we are targets. "Easy, ripe and luscious," as it was once put by Paul Newman in Butch Cassidy. Yes, we are pushovers when we leave our skis unattended on the plaza at the resort for 30 minutes. Zap, they are gone. Easy when we stash a briefcase with two grand in cash in the trunk of our rented Lincoln, only to return and find some space-age thief has short circuited the electronic trunk opener after punching out a door lock to get in the car. We are dumb, dumb, dumb for spending $300,000 on the vacation pad and then being too cheap to spend $50 on a quality deadbolt. What do you think this is up here, a slum? One drive through Park Meadows the other night and we counted 20 houses with no lights on, the walks not shovelled and the curtains open on the windows. It is a potential supermarket sweep for lowlives out there. The police here, as elsewhere, are only human and the chances of recovering stolen property in this country are so slim as to be nonexistent. Do you like the things you have slaved to buy? Then lock them up and use your heads. Let's make it a little harder for the punks, hoods, creeps and bums to take our skis and whatever home as souvenirs. -JH |
