Slings, Arrows of Valentine’s Day Misfortune : Crime: Thieves steal 120 flower arrangements, 88 dozen roses from Hollywood florist. Volunteers pitch in to save the day for Cupid.
Violeta del Cid’s heart was broken on Valentine’s Day.
That is because thieves stole 120 Valentine flower arrangements and 88 dozen roses before the Hollywood florist could deliver them Friday to customers.
“I just cried,” said Del Cid. “I just stood there and cried.”
The flowers--some including arrangements decorated with candy and heart-shaped balloons--were being stored in the back of a locked refrigerated truck parked behind her shop in the 6200 block of Sunset Boulevard.
Each was labeled with a hand-addressed, personalized love note that included the name of the sender.
The insulated rental truck was being used for storage space because refrigerators inside her Pete’s Flowers shop were full of blossoms stockpiled for the year’s busiest floral day.
“There was almost five days’ work in there,” Del Cid said. “The truck was totally empty. They had pried it open.”
After discovering the $8,000 theft on Thursday, Del Cid and her husband, Paul Michaels, hurriedly ordered replacement flowers. As word of their predicament spread, friends rushed to help trim tulip stems and arrange sprays of baby’s breath for new floral arrangements.
Two doctors and a lawyer were among about 10 volunteers, some of whom worked through the night Thursday to fill Valentine’s Day orders. They were uncertain that they would finish them all in time.
“I just felt sorry for them,” said volunteer Nancy Lew, whose only previous experiencehad been at a Japanese flower-arranging class. “Anyway, this is a good place to spend Valentine’s Day, surrounded by beautiful flowers.”
By Friday afternoon, the novices were filling orders from frantic last-minute customers buying roses by the bunch and from people such as social worker Jasmin Espada. She came into the shop to purchase a delicate two-rose arrangement for a friend.
Out back, Michaels’ brother-in-law, Harry Hoffman, was standing guard at the refrigerator truck.
He was ready to nip any further flower thievery in the bud.
“They’ll walk off if you don’t watch,” Hoffman said, surveying replacement vases of $60 long-stemmed rose bouquets sitting inside the truck’s refrigerator compartment.
A few blocks away at the Hollywood Division police station, Sgt. William Davidson said the blossom burglars had not yet been caught and tossed into his cooler.
Del Cid, meantime, was wishing she could take aim at the culprits--and not with any wimpy Cupid’s arrow, either.
She was bitter that the bloom had been snipped off her biggest day of the year.
“Why would people do something like that?” she asked. “We’ve been here 17 years. We’ve never done anything to hurt anybody.”
