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Theft of statue is third for Fallbrook in recent months

A bronze statue of a boy holding a rabbit entitled ‘Bonjour,’ valued at approximately $10,000, and part of Fallbrook’s Art in Public Places program, was stolen from the Fallbrook Village Square last week, presumably to be cut and sold as scrap metal.

The statue, which was installed at the entrance to the Village Square at the corner of Main and Alvarado in the Spring of 1999, by the Fallbrook Village Rotary Club, was created by local artist Célou Bonnet and modeled after Preston Beye, who was seven years old at the time. Preston, now 16 years old, is the son of Rotarian Nick Beye, a local dentist, and his wife, Wendy.

“We’ve worked so hard to put public art in here, to make the town look nicer,” Wendy Beye said. “To let people destroy this vision of what we have going here is sad.”

The missing statue was a popular piece in the Village’s Art in Public Places program which was established to encourage people to donate art that can be placed in public places for beautification of the community.

With the price of metal rising, this statue is not the first one to be stolen from the Fallbrook community this year, as two other thefts preceded this one.

The first theft involved a metal sculpture located in front of Palomares House on Stage Coach Lane. It was found, in pieces, at a metal scrap yard in Oceanside. The second art piece, a bronze statue of a dog, was stolen from in front of Avocado Animal Hospital on East Mission Road. It still has not been found.

The rising theft epidemic has affected construction sites and even cemeteries across the country. Pieces of bronze are being stolen and sold at scrap yards for a fraction of their artistic value.

According to an article in the Chicago Sun-Times on the thefts, “Stolen items included mausoleum vases, World War II plaques, religious statutes, headstones and other items. At Evergreen Cemetery in Evergreen Park alone , nearly 1,100 brass vases were stolen and sold for scrap, the release said. Each 10-inch vase is valued at about $400, but they were sold for $10 to $12 at scrap yards.”

Current scrap prices for brass depend upon the salvage yard, and usually range from $1.25 to $1.70 per pound. This means that if the thief took the statue to a salvage yard, they would receive between $93 and $136 for the bronze. This is a fraction of the sculpture’s artistic value of $10,000.

Whoever stole the 75 to 80 pound statue may be in for a surprise, because most scrap yards in the area are not accepting pieces of anything that resembles a work of art, because it is presumed to be stolen.

According to Sheriff’s Detective Dan Laibach, who has been assigned the case, scrap yards are on the lookout for anything that looks like a piece of a statue, and will report their findings to the Sheriff’s Department if they come across anything suspicious. Anyone charged with the theft would face a grand theft felony charge and could face up to five years in prison, he said.

Measures are underway to try and prevent the theft of other sculptures in the area. Art leaders are considering installing special security systems and upgrading installation techniques to make it harder to remove the statues from their pedestals.

“We have to secure all of the statues, or take them out of public view, which is contrary to what my committee is all about,” said Jim Swan, of the Art in Public Places program. “We buy these and put them out so the public can enjoy them.”

Vince Ross, chairman of the Fallbrook Village Association and the Beye family have gotten together to post a $500 reward for information that leads to the arrest of the thief or the safe return of the statue.

“It’s worth it, because it’s a $10,000 piece to us,” said Swan.

 

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