1,200 La Mirada Lamplighter newspapers stolen from newsroom office prior to distribution

1,200 Lamplighter papers were stolen this morning from in front of the offices.

By Randy Economy

Members of the Cerritos Sheriff’s Department are investigating the theft of 1,200 undelivered community newspapers from outside the office of Los Cerritos Community Newspaper on early Friday morning.

According to Brian Hews, Publisher of both the Los Cerritos Community Newspaper and La Mirada Lamplighter, over 1,200 printed newspapers of Friday’s edition of the Lamplighter were stolen from the front of the Lamplighter office located at the corner of Artesia Boulevard and Shoemaker Avenue in Cerritos.

Brian Hews, publisher of the Lamplighter, said that their home-delivery person, Eddie Garcia, leaves the papers at the office at around 4 am in the morning with other business delivery drivers taking those papers between 7 am and 9 am.

“Our Sports Editor Loren Kopff took the Cerritos papers at 7:30 am, and said the Lamplighter papers were in front of the office when he left. Maria Gonzalez, Lamplighter Marketing Consultant, arrived at the office at 8:30 am and saw that the Lamplighter papers were gone, so they were obviously taken between 7:40 and 8:30”, said Hews.

Hews went on to say, “$1,000 papers are worth over $1,000, so this is a big deal. And I am especially angry because this denies our La Mirada readers who get the paper at their business, and who have local residents come in to their business for the paper, in reading this week’s paper. We have a large following at City Hall, the Resource Center, Splash! and the Senior Center they will be especially upset”.

“Yes they could have been taken for recycling”, Hews said, “but why would they leave over 1,000 of the Cerritos newspaper behind? It is very suspicious”.

Hews said that he has filed a report with the LA County Sheriffs and they will follow up with the case. “The investigating officer thought it very suspicious too that other papers were left behind. “She asked if I thought I had any suspects in mind, and I did give them a couple names”, Hews said. He also noted that the the recycle value of the 1200 copies would only be around $3.

If anyone has any information you can call the Lamplighter offices anonymously at 562.407.3873 or email [email protected].

–Randy Economy