SLO climbing gym thief steals nearly $20,000 of equipment: ‘Pretty frickin’ heartbreaking’
It’s already been a difficult year for The Pad Climbing gym in San Luis Obispo, but on Monday morning, it got even worse.
Around 3:30 a.m. Monday, someone broke into the Ricardo Court gym using a hidden staff key and stole between $15,000 and $20,000 worth of equipment, CEO Kristin Horowitz told The Tribune on Monday afternoon.
Stolen items included climbing ropes, harnesses, computers, a safe used to store iPads and keys for the building and numerous parts of the gym’s security system, as well as some of Horowitz and her husband’s own personal equipment.
“So, it just looks like one of the things where unfortunately, the longer you live, you make enemies and somebody decided to target us,” she said.
Based on what was stolen, Horowitz said, it appears that the thief was likely a climber — potentially a disgruntled former employee or someone with knowledge of how the San Luis Obispo climbing gym is run.
“It’s probably an inside job,” she said. “They knew where our secret staff key — we have like a community key for people who are needing to stay in the parking lot, get into their showers and stuff — they basically like smashed that key lock apart, and they got in with a key. And they basically did everything they could to humble us.”
The thief also disabled the security system, so there is no video showing what occurred, Horowitz said.
The Pad Climbing is staffed between 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily, but is open to members 24 hours a day.
Horowitz said, though all-hours access has been temporarily stopped for the time being, she plans to continue to allow it for gym members in the future.
“The first thing I did was get a little bit scared and want to stop doing 24-7 access but, you know ... for 20 years we’ve been operating, trusting people won’t do something like that,” she said. “And I can’t have one time making us shut it down.”
In the two decades since the gym, originally known as SLO-Op Climbing, was founded, Horowitz said she’s never experienced anything to this extent before.
And it couldn’t have come at a worse time.
“Honestly, this year has been the worst,” she said noting that the gym was forced to close for months due to the coronavirus pandemic. “We followed all the state orders. We’re, like, a million dollars in debt at this point. We’re not back to profiting yet, this is like just another thing. “
Horowitz announced the break-in on the gym’s social media accounts Monday morning, asking for people to keep an eye out for chalk-covered computers and someone with new used climbing gear.
“Please be on the lookout because this is pretty frickin’ heartbreaking,” she said in a video posted to The Pad Climbing’s Instagram account.
That video had garnered more than 2,400 views as of Monday evening, with comments such as “so sad” and “this is just despicable and so heartbreaking. Wtf.”
Horowitz told The Tribune that the best way for people to help out now would be to keep an eye out for the stolen equipment, but also consider supporting the gym now that it has reopened.
“Come back, please come back,” she said. “Because we’re down at like 25% of what we once were. ... We’ve been losing $20,000 a month still. So come back and support us. We used to be a hub, and let us be a hub again.”
The Pad Climbing also has locations in Santa Maria and Henderson, Nevada.
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