mmg.com.au

Burglars have targeted Cobram businesses 18 times in the past three months, returning to steal from some premises more than once.

Cobram police say there were seven burglaries from Cobram businesses in November, four in December and seven in January — a trend which Senior Sergeant Garry Barton calls ‘‘a shocking rise in commercial burglaries’’.

Aside from business owners being forced to meet costs of replacing stock, fixing damage and paying rising insurance premiums, the burglaries are making them feel unsafe.

‘‘We’ll all be on edge now. I can imagine myself getting up at 2am to check on the shop,’’ Head Start Academic Tuition co-owner Michael Davies said.

Mr Davies discovered a hole measuring 1sqm in the shop’s side window last Wednesday, before realising the float was stolen.

‘‘It’s really disappointing, my wife and I only opened the shop in mid-November. It’s our baby,’’ he said.

Head Start was one many businesses targeted last week, with High Country Meats, Cassidy’s Morrison and Teare Solicitors and Millers Mowers and Motorcycles also hit.

Millers Mowers and Motorcycles owner Gavin Skinner arrived at his business on Monday morning last week, 15 minutes after his mobile phone notified him the alarm was going off.

‘‘I had a really hollow feeling, I thought it would be a false alarm,’’ he said.

Arriving to find the chain cut off the gate and the back door destroyed, Mr Skinner waited in his car until police arrived, worried offenders might still be lurking.

The burglars stole six chainsaws, two child-sized motorbikes, leaf blowers and tools but left no fingerprints or mess.

The business was reportedly targeted again by thieves at the weekend.

Thieves hit Punt Rd hairdressing salon Ahead of Time early last month, where they made off with hair straighteners, 25 pink bottles of hair product and five shampoo packs.

Since the burglary on January 5, owner Chantelle Matthews said she has felt unsafe at the salon alone late at night.

‘‘I’m thinking about whether they were in here wearing balaclavas. It makes you feel sick,’’ she said.

Ambience Bakery Cafe owners Greg and Leanne Walsh have spent about $20000 on a new back door, security cameras and a safe since their cash registers were taken on November 28.

‘‘We’ve done a lot for the community and it really guts you to have someone come in here and cost you a fortune,’’ Mr Walsh said.

‘‘I can say the person who did it doesn’t know the heartache they have caused but they wouldn’t care.’’

Mandy Woodhead said she feels more frustration than heartache, after her salon Harmonious Hairdressing was broken into for the ninth time in 26 years on January 4.

‘‘Isn’t it sad to think that we’re trying to work hard all these years and some Wally thinks it’s his God-given right to enter your premises and remove whatever he wants,’’ she said.

Ms Woodhead said she felt discouraged with the judicial process after an underage man caught for a previous burglary on her business was told to write her a letter of apology.

‘‘The letter arrived 12 months later. It wasn’t worth the paper it was written on,’’ she said.

While police have charged a number of offenders for burglaries over recent months, Cobram police are appealing to the public for any additional information that might help them with their investigations.

‘‘We are trying everything in our power to actively police this by executing search warrants, putting on extra patrols and through other methods,’’ Sen Sgt Barton said.