Mail theft in the Merritt area has led to Canada Post ceasing delivery to some of its community mailboxes as approximately 500 customers have had mail stolen recently.
Merritt post office shop steward Lana McKnight said customers can come to the Merritt post office to pick up their mail, requiring a picture ID to do so.
For the time being, the Merritt post office won’t be delivering mail to the boxes that were robbed.
“It’s not safe, so we’re not going to have any mail out there,” McKnight said.
She said there won’t be delivery to those mailboxes until new ones are in place.
Fourteen community mailboxes in Lower Nicola were broken into near the end of March, RCMP Const. Tracy Dunsmore said.
On March 23, police received a report from Canada Post saying three community mailboxes had been broken into in Lower Nicola and the day after 11 more were reported by the Crown corporation to have been broken into.
Dunsmore said some Lower Nicola residents found some of the stolen mail that belonged in these boxes discarded in the area.
On March 26, a worker cleaning out garbage cans at Nicola Lake found a garbage bag that contained mail from the Bench and Iron Mountain areas of town, she said.
Dunsmore said mail thieves will look for things such as cheques or money.
According to McKnight, community mailboxes were robbed in the Bench, Collettville and Lower Nicola areas on April 3.
Dunsmore said the RCMP does not have a file for any stolen mail from that date.
Sometime between April 22 and 23, an unknown amount of mail was stolen from community mailboxes again in the Lower Nicola area, impacting some 270 homes, McKnight said.
Dunsmore said that police received word from Canada Post on April 24 reporting that six locations had been broken into on the evening of April 22.
Those were all in the Lower Nicola area, and included mailboxes on Miller Road, Aberdeen Road, Sunshine Valley East Road, Woodward Avenue, Anderson Avenue and Winney Avenue, Dunsmore said.
Dunsmore said reports of mail theft in Merritt are not common and added that Merritt police are asking other detachments if they are having the same issue.
“Whether it’s someone in Merritt or somebody that’s travelling around doing it, we have no idea,” she said.
Police are asking the public for any information they have on mail thefts.
“If they do see a vehicle around the mailboxes that doesn’t look like it belongs there — or it’s being suspicious — a vehicle description, a licence plate number, anything that they could give to us would help us,” Dunsmore said.
She said people can call Crime Stoppers at 1-877-222-8477.
She recommends customers who think they’ve had bills or other mail stolen contact the organization or person that sent it.
