Austin cemeteries experiencing floral arrangement thefts

(ABC 6 News) – Memorial Day weekend is around the corner and people are bringing floral arrangements for loved ones and veterans at cemeteries. The city of Austin is seeing a problem though.

People are stealing these floral arrangements for themselves from cemeteries throughout the city and not much is being done to stop them. Unfortunately, this is not a new problem for the people of Austin.

It’s an issue that has been ongoing for years and not much beyond individuals catching thieves in the act, is being done to stop them.

“I think that’s really, really sad. That people have to go steal from people we are so close to and miss so much,” said Annette Quinlan of Austin.

Quinlan has visited her husband almost every day at Calvary Cemetery since he passed away 23 years ago. The theft of floral arrangements from headstones is nothing new. Especially with a frenzy of people doing so the day after Memorial Day.

“I’ve seen pickup trucks out there picking up a plant here and a plant there and putting them in the back of their truck. Okay, these people can’t all be related to them, they didn’t put all those plants out there,” said Quinlan.

These thefts not only bring pain to family members leaving the flowers for their loved ones but to those who put them together as well.

“It’s a lot of moving parts to just this one weekend and then for one person to just take that one moving part away it’s just sad,” said Carmen Srock, SuperFresh Garden Center Manager.

Local businesses like SuperFresh Bakery and Garden Center are always busy this time of year. When Srock hears that floral arrangements she’s made for customers are getting stolen, it doesn’t sit right with her.

We pay tribute to a lot of our friends and family that bring cemetery pots in to be filled to honor their loved ones whether Veterans or just a loss of family. We don’t really know the story behind all these pots, but it’s heartwarming and people are very passionate about it. And it just really sits sour in my stomach how someone could go out and do that,” Srock said.

Local caretakers of these cemeteries do not do much in the way of enforcing these thefts from being stopped. They say it’s all on the families placing these flowers on their loved ones’ headstones to stop these thefts from happening.