27-year-old sleigh stolen from front of store

GLASTONBURY, Conn. (WTNH) -- For 27 years Emmy Lou has had an antique red sleigh out front of her boutique, lit up with a tree and packages until Saturday night when the grinch struck Glastonbury.

"She said the big red sleigh out front it's gone," Emmy Lou Debari of Emmy Lou's said.

All that is left are four cinder blocks and tire tracks as police say the thieves didn't use reindeer but a large vehicle for the sleigh heist.

"I don't know how valuable it is. It was valuable to me and to us at the store of course but I'm not sure how valuable it was 'cause it wasn't in the best of condition. It has been out for that many years," Debari said.

Emmy Lou says the thieves used the cover of the trees to steal the sleigh. The truck backed up over a granite historical marker and Emmy Lou says they came prepared because they had to have wire cutters.

There were dozens of thick wires holding the sleigh in the concrete blocks because it was older. They cut the sleigh free, they cut the electrical wires and then dragged it to the back, unloaded the tree and all the presents that were in it and threw it in the back of a pick up truck or onto a trailer and drove off into the night.

"It seems like someone targeted you," News 8's Bob Wilson said.

"I think so. One of the police said do I have anybody that's an enemy and I said not that I'm aware of," Debari said.

"It's despicable," Mary Ellen Dombrowski the President of the Glastonbury Chamber of Commerce said.

Dombrowski says Emmy Lou is an icon in the community and decks the halls of Glastonbury from the square to the clock to the store every year.

"How somebody can come up between 5 and 9 at night and remove a full size sleigh from the center of the town is hard to understand, but more so, why," Dombrowski said.

"It's just it brings us some enjoyment for everybody around and for someone to just come and take it, I don't understand people like that," Richard Paskevicius of Glastonbury said.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Officer Adam VanSkiver at (860) 633-8301.