Lynne Mowbray |

Kane’s Sports store in Maclean was targeted by thieves, during the early hours of Tuesday morning last week, with thousands of dollars in merchandise being stolen.

Business owner Kane Aeschlimann said that they were devastated by the break in.

“It’s hard enough for people in small business and with this happening, you just think is it really worth it?” Mr Aeschlimann said.

“(My wife) Jacqui works five days a week and I work seven days a week and we never get to see our kids and you really have to ask yourself is it really worth it, when you get idiots like this (breaking into your store).

“They also stole a laptop, which contained precious family photos of our children growing up.

“It’s been a complete nightmare for us,” he said.

Kane’s wife Jacqui who manages the Maclean store said that the thieves targeted all their top brand stock.

“We lost almost all of our menswear brand names: Adidas, Puma, Champion, Canterbury and, Henley’s which is an up market brand and we are one of the only carriers of it in the whole of the Northern Rivers,” Ms Aeschlimann said. 

“There was also quite a bit of the women’s wear taken, mainly Adidas and Champion and around 30 Adidas, Champion and Henley baseball caps. We only received this stock in the last two weeks.

“We also had a rack of NSW State of Original ‘vintage’ jerseys which were all taken. They are a specific collared jersey on rugby type fabric and we order them in because they are quite special looking. 

“Some of our Henley’s men’s tops we received on Monday afternoon – and we were robbed that night.

“There was also our ‘high end’ ASICS footwear and Carve sunglasses, which we only received last week.

Just the footwear alone will go into the $1000’s.

“I won’t be able to replace the clothing stock as I can’t get it anymore, as our suppliers are already ordering for next year.

“I will be able to reorder the footwear, but we are in a bind because we haven’t even paid for this stolen stock yet and now we will have to order more.

“It would be good if people could keep an ear to the ground and an eye out online on Marketplace and Gumtree, especially for these brands.

“We just want to say a big thank you to the public for their support, because everyone’s been fantastic.