Gasoline stolen from parked truck

Calvin Bratt
Tribune editor

  LYNDEN -- A Liberty Street resident had about 13-14 gallons of gasoline stolen from a parked truck on Sunday evening, April 20.
  Jeffrey Fullner said he heard his dog barking around 11 p.m., looked outside to the street and saw another truck speeding away. He didn't realize until Monday morning that the gas cap on one of his Ford F150 tanks had been forced open and gasoline siphoned out.
  "I'm just in disbelief that this is going on right where we live," he said. "Gasoline is definitely a commodity."
  Lynden Police Chief Jack Foster said that reports of gasoline theft or service station drive-aways have not been as high as he would expect, given that fuel prices have soared this spring.
  The Lynden am/pm station on Guide Meridian Road has gone entirely to prepayment of gasoline sales, however. A sign was posted at pumps several weeks ago: "All fuel sales must be pre-pay. This is necessary because of continued driveoff losses."
  Fullner said that he was the victim of a different kind of theft about two years ago at a home on Van Dyk Road. On a Sunday a day after hosting a garage sale, he was robbed of $500 worth of shop vacuums and a drill.
  A building contractor, Fullner said he is sure that visitors to the sale scouted out the site and then came back the next day to steal the goods.
  Foster said that a theft of that type occurred in Lynden a year ago, so it is important for residents always to lock up a garage or storage shed to guard against such thefts of opportunity.