Police are still investigating the theft of nearly $4,000 in cash, cigarettes and beer from the Beverage King store in West Lebanon last Friday morning.
One-hundred and fifty cartons of cigarettes and an undisclosed amount of beer were stolen from the store, located off Route 12A, at 4:27 a.m., according to the Valley News.
The burglars caused extensive damage to the store after forcibly entering the front doors, "rendering the locking mechanism inoperable," the article stated.
The cash register was also destroyed with an object that store owner Earl Heath described as a sledgehammer.
Lt. Robert Jason of the Lebanon Police Department said that in addition to the $4,000 value of the stolen goods and cash, property damage alone will total about $2,400.
Though no one was in the store at the time of the burglary, police arrived on the scene within two minutes, according to Heath, because the thieves set off the store's alarm system.
The suspects were already gone when the authorities arrived. Lebanon Police are currently investigating several possible suspects, Jason said.
The identities of the suspects have not been released and there is still some dissension over the skill level of the robbers.
Heath said they were "definitely professionals."
But the Lebanon Police Department has yet to find any evidence to prove that the thieves were professionals. According to Jason, the burglars were experienced, but not by any means professional.
"If they were professional, they would have tried a bank," he said.
