The Willow Glen Resident

Delivery vans host parties, but the owners have no fun

By Rebecca Wallace

It might have been the most drastic way yet to deal with the ban on smoking in bars.

Some people apparently looking for a place to party found it in the delivery vans of two Lincoln Avenue businesses a few weeks ago. Erin Benford, owner of the Dazzle flower shop, and Dave Bertucelli, owner of La Villa delicatessen, came to work the morning of Feb. 7 to find that their vans had been broken into and trashed and had beer poured inside them the night before.

San Jose Police Officer John Carillo said police had no leads on the two cases.

"It smelled like [the suspects] just sat there and smoked cigarettes. They left a cigar butt and a burn," Bertucelli said. "The van smelled like stinky stale beer and cigars."

The Dazzle van had its passenger window smashed into tiny fragments, the rear-view mirror ripped off and the glove compartment filled with beer, said Benford. She had arrived at work at about 6:45 a.m. to use the van to bring flowers to a wedding.

Both seats of the van were tipped back, she said: "It looks like they were lounging."

The police officer who showed up to investigate Benford's call went to La Villa first by mistake, not realizing that a nearly identical incident had occurred there as well, Bertucelli said. The La Villa van had its mirror torn off and windshield broken, beer dumped on the windshield and dashboard, and the knobs ripped off the radio.

"They didn't even try to steal the radio and jumper cables," said Bertucelli, who added that the van had been broken into, and nothing stolen, about three months before as well. "What's the point?"

Benford said her van's license plate had been stolen in October. In addition, a Dazzle van had been broken into a few years ago and its gasoline siphoned out.

She also reported seeing a number of straight-backed banquet chairs that had been thrown upside down onto Lincoln Avenue on Feb. 6 or 7. "I'm grateful they didn't hit the shop," she said. "This makes you reluctant to trust."

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