Denver garden center seeks help after eight burglaries

When Cade Scholl and his wife, Kara, bought the Country Fair Garden Center in 2025, they expected the usual challenges of running a neighborhood garden shop. They did not expect to spend much of the next year replacing stolen plants and repairing damaged fences.

Scholl said the Denver garden center, located at 7150 Leetsdale Drive near South Parker Road, has been targeted eight times since the start of 2026. Some incidents involved stolen plants. Others involved damage to the property.

“I’d say that’s several thousand dollars between repairing the fence, replacing the flowers and the plants that were stolen,” Scholl said. “What’s harder to quantify is the impact that it’s had to the staff, to the community and to the customers.”

In an email to Bucket List, the Denver Police Department stated that they are working with the garden center to prevent future crimes and urged business owners to maintain contact with their local community resource officers. 

“Officers have been in communication with the business and have provided support by helping improve security. DPD has also increased patrols in the area,” said DPD’s media relation unit. “Anyone with any information that can assist with these cases is asked to contact Metro Denver Crime Stoppers at 720-913-STOP (7867).” 

Burglaries in Denver have been on the decline for the past three years. 2026 is on track to reverse that trend. According to the DPD’s crime dashboard, 2,603 burglaries have been committed through Sept. 8, with 254 occurring in the last 28 days. In 2025, there were 2,863 burglaries throughout the year.

The thefts at the Country Fair Garden Center have happened in different ways, according to Scholl. In some cases, people reached over the fence or grabbed plants through fence posts. After Scholl added more fencing, he said, the thieves adapted.

“They’ve been more creative, and they’ve brought sticks and been able to reach through and pull things toward them with the stick,” Scholl said, adding that thieves even cut a hole in his rear fence to unlock it and steal a wagon, which he was later able to recover.

Scholl said that he heard of other businesses being burglarized but feels he was singled out specifically because of how easy it would be to steal from him.

“I was first identified because it would be easy to reach over the fence and grab plants. It was mainly opportunity by the thief,” he said. “But once they identified that, I was marked as a target.”

David C. Pyrooz, a professor of criminology from the University of Colorado Boulder (CU), said that one of the best ways to deter criminals was through the usage of new security measures.

“You’re going to use something called crime prevention through environmental design; you’re going to be altering the nature of the environment to make it less appealing,” he said. “Something related to burglary is putting up a camera, for instance, which will heighten the likelihood of apprehension, because thieves are much more sensitive to the certainty of detection than they are to the severity of punishment.”

When asked if this would have the opposite effect and instead entice thieves, Pyrooz argued that it would not.

“You might find instances of that in more elite or high-end commercial theft,” Pyrooz said. “But it’s rare. This type of crime is typically an opportunity. There’s not a lot of forethought and effort put into it, and if there must be effort, they will typically go to the next location where it requires less effort.”

Pyrooz said law enforcement has a duty to investigate, and local government has a responsibility to support that work. Neighbors and customers can also play a role, he said, by watching out for local businesses.

“The broader community responsibility is to serve as informal social control, that if they see something, they say something, to call the police or a responsible party,” he said.

Scholl also calls on the community for support and is proud of their response to the burglaries and continued support for him and the business.

“Customers will come in and mention it [the burglaries], and they are always grateful that we’re here and grateful that we’re not planning on going anywhere,” Scholl said. 

Still, the repeated thefts have left him uneasy about what could happen next.

Scholl has increased security around the store, including using additional fencing, making plants harder to access and putting a poster on the front door that warns potential thieves that the police are watching. Scholl remains hopeful that the burglaries will cease in the near future. 

“I don’t want to go anywhere. I love the business, I love the community, we’re just going to keep on working through this,” Scholl said. 

When asked what he would tell the people who were stealing from him, Scholl said he would prefer the burglars ask for help.

“I wish they wouldn’t steal from me, and if they need help in some other way, we can try to help them,” Scholl said. “But it’s not right to steal from somebody, especially somebody you don’t even know, in the middle of the night.”