Westmoreland family store repeatedly hit by burglars
Date published: 12/5/2007
BY FRANK DELANO
Sometime Sunday night or Monday morning, an Oak Grove store was broken into for the fourth time since March.
"This is a serious situation that has got to stop," said A.R. "Mickey" Groves, the 75-year-old proprietor of Smithfield Farms Country Store on State Route 3 in Westmoreland County.
"I love this store as much as I love fishing," Groves said.
He and his family have operated the business for 15 years. They sell an eclectic assortment of merchandise, including beer, cigarettes, home-grown vegetables, tools, lawn furniture and prefab buildings.
"Until this year, we didn't have any break-ins," said Janice Groves, Mickey's wife. "We left all kinds of things--furniture, potted plants, vegetables--on the porch at night and nobody touched anything. Then, all of a sudden, it started."
The first break-in occurred March 1. Someone smashed in a rear door and took money from a cash drawer, she said.
Janice Groves, 72, suffers from cardiovascular problems. She was recuperating in a hospital from a stroke and heart attack when the second break-in occurred May 25. Cash, cigarettes, cigars and beer were taken.
"Now, we make a point of not leaving any money in the store overnight, not even a roll of pennies," she said.
Her daughter and son-in-law, Sandy and Steve Dailey, moved this year to Oak Grove from Newport News to help the elderly Groves on the farm and in the store.
On Oct. 11, Sandy Dailey was cleaning a bathroom in the store and felt a draft. It came from a hole the size of a grapefruit that someone had punched in a wall above the toilet in an unsuccessful attempt to get inside the store.
Her husband Steve, a retired Newport News policeman, barred the back doors with two-by-fours. A neighbor also found at an abandoned house near the store some of the cigarettes stolen in May, said Sandy Dailey.
Cigarettes were stolen again this week when, despite the bars, a back door was again smashed in. Beer, a laptop computer and a digital camera were also taken.
"I do not like being a crime victim. It's just horrible," said Steve Dailey.
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