Thousands In Hair Products Taken From North Side Salon

SPOKANE — A hair salon in North Spokane has been burglarized but the thieves didn’t take any cash. Instead they made off with thousands in shampoo, conditioners, gels and other hair care products.

The owners of Hair Etc. at the intersection of Francis and Nevada say they lost thousands of dollars in hair care products overnight. Owners guess at least $20,000 worth of goods were stolen.

After decades of running his own salon Tom Millersmith arrived at work to find something unusual.

“In the parking lot there was broken nail polish bottles in the parking lot, and I just followed them in there was bottles of nail polish all over the floor, garbage all over the floor,” Millersmith said.

Someone broke into the salon through a back door, breaking the security lights on their way in. They got away with cutting sheers, hair products and even nail polish – all worth thousands of dollars – carried out in garbage cans.

“They took every retail item that we had, curling irons, shampoos, conditioners, gels, mousses, you name it,” Millersmith said.

The thieves also took off with an antique wooden post and a brass-bronze cash register weighing in at several hundred pounds.

“Yeah, that’s a bummer. Whether they’ll try to take it to a recycling place, an antique place it’s hard to say what it’s worth but it’s worth a lot of money,” Millersmith said.

Break-ins have happened here before but it’s been a long time, and never like this.

“Well, I’ve heard about it happening in other places but I’ve never had it happen to me naturally,” Millersmith said.

The salon’s owners have called other salons, pawn shops and antique stores to keep an eye out for their merchandise, but they’re also keeping an eye out on Craigslist and eBay to see if the goods turn up there as well.