About $16,700 was stolen from a safe at Tomales Bay Oyster Company’s office in Marshall early Sunday morning, the sheriff’s office and company head Tod Friend said.
Mr. Friend said it appeared that the thief disconnected the wires for the security cameras, kicked open the front door and started searching the office. They knocked office equipment around and beat in the drywall near the safe “like they were trying to get behind it or something,” Mr. Friend said. But the safe containing the cash, though bolted to the floor, was unlocked.
The company does not store money on the premises long-term.
Though the police dusted for fingerprints, Mr. Friend surmised that the intruder was probably clever enough to wear gloves.
“The only curious thing is that they took some [office papers] out of a cubby on the computer table,” Mr. Friend said. The papers were later found in a back yard in Rohnert Park.
In Mr. Friend’s six years running the oyster company, the office had never been broken into. The nearby Marshall Store, which sells hundreds of thousands of the oyster farm’s bivalves each year—was burglarized earlier this year. The intruder stole $5,000 from a safe, a cash register and a sales system.
The burglary comes just two weeks after the oyster company ceased its weekday retail sales, limited its weekend sales to carryout customers and removed all its picnic tables and barbecues, as its expanded operation weren’t in line with its current use permit.
Mr. Friend says he has installed a stronger door, but that given the business’ isolated location, it would be difficult to deter a determined intruder.