ELLENVILLE � Brian and Colleen Culwell of Ace Hardware on South Main Street have a message to potential shoplifters: if you want to boost hardware, be prepared to do hard time.

Brian and the store's manager, Miguel Martire, were in family court in Kingston last Tuesday to testify in a shoplifting case which had occurred at their old location on North Main Street.

"A couple months ago we had a fourteen year old kid come in and steal a knife off the shelf," said Brian in Colleen's office last Thursday.

"A ten dollar knife, no big deal," said Colleen.

"Well, a big deal in the fact that it had a six-inch blade," replied Brian.

While the Culwells described the incident and the trip to Kingston two days prior, Brian was hard at work setting up an old computer so he could access the video file of the incident. Apparently, during the trip from the Ellenville Police Department to the court in Kingston, the video he'd provided to the police had disappeared.

"Nobody knows where it is," Brian laughed. "They want new copies of it, because, I assume the attorney for the kid has gotten wind that nobody can find the video, since he asked to see it and nobody's presented it to him. So they came back to me for a new copy of the video."

Without the video evidence, he said, the accused teenager wouldn't admit to having stolen the knife, hence Brian's efforts to recover the surveillance footage. Laughing aside, the Culwells are serious about prosecuting shoplifters to the fullest extent of the law.

"I don't care if you steal something that's a dollar, we will go after you for it," said Colleen.

The Culwells also experienced $4,000 worth of power tools being stolen this past year � thefts they believe can be linked to one perpetrator.

"He took a cordless drill off the shelf and put it in the front of his pants," recounts Colleen. "I mean, really. Who puts a drill in the front of his pants?"

The Culwells said that the perpetrator was even tackled by one of their employees after having been caught, and that the accused thief told the Ace employee that he had a gun. Later, the shoplifter tried to run over another employee with his car. He was eventually charged with menacing and petty larceny.

The Culwells' story is one that's being told all around the country, as reports of increases in shoplifting and theft have gone up since the nation hit the financial skids. Brian said that, within the last six months, thefts have "definitely spiked."

To combat the trend, the Culwells have been relying heavily on their hidden camera system throughout the store.

"A lot of times, we don't realize until we find the empty package, or that we find that it's missing," said Colleen. "Then we go back to the video, catch them on video, burn it on a disc for the police, and they know who it is because it's a small town, and they go get the person three days after they shoplifted."

The two are also discussing the possibility of a "Wall of Shame," which would feature names and pictures of caught and convicted shoplifters who will be banned from the store. In the meantime, the Culwells are hoping to get this most recent case of knife-boosting settled soon so they can save themselves another trip to Kingston.

"You're not only stealing from us, you're stealing from our employees, you're stealing from the community," said Colleen of the broader effects the thefts have. "We're trying to do something positive here, and people come in and they just care about their own interests."

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