WESTFIELD – “Disheartening,” was what Gary Cloutier, owner of Cloot’s Auto Body at 825 North Road called the vandalism that destroyed his Thanksgiving decorations. For years, Cloutier and his wife, Liz have been decorating an old Cloot’s Auto Body truck in front of their shop for different holidays, including the 4th of July, Veteran’s Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. This is the fourth time they’ve had the decorations vandalized.
Thanksgiving display at Cloot’s Auto Body on North Street. (Photo submitted)
For Thanksgiving, they had decorated with blown up Pilgrims, Native Americans, along with a boy and girl of each holding hands, and a turkey on the hood of the truck. Cloutier said they had just purchased the two sets of children that week.
The day after Thanksgiving, they went to the shop for paperwork to take home. On their way out of the shop, they saw that the decorations had fallen over. Cloutier said sometimes leaves get clogged in the blowers when it’s windy, so he went to clear the leaves and blow them up, holding them up by their heads. When they didn’t take in any air, he looked at them more closely. He saw a foot long slice right through the one he was attempting to inflate. “All of them have cuts in them, from a foot to 18 inches,” he said.
The decorations were sliced 12-18 inches. (Photo submitted)
They checked the video from cameras on the display, and realized it had been vandalized twice – once the night before Thanksgiving, and then the following night. He said the first night, two kids got out of a car. The second night, a different car stopped and the passengers got out. He said they were “clearly not children,” he thought maybe in their late teens or early twenties. He said the video is grainy, and too far away for identification, although he plans to turn it over to police. Cloutier went to a business next door that puts in security systems, who advised him on better cameras to buy. He hopes the two new cameras will be clearer.
“You try to do something nice,” Cloutier said, adding that people are always saying to him, we just want to let you know we love the way you decorate your truck, always something different. He said for somebody to just trash something so they can laugh about it is disheartening. “It kills you to spend that kind of money, and take your time.” Cloutier said he lost $600 on this display, and probably $1,000 over the years to vandalism.
“My wife said ‘that’s it,” he said. They had previously been looking at some new Christmas decorations to put out, but were now thinking, why bother? “On the flip side, people are saying please don’t stop, my kids love it. Some have said they purposely take 202 to drive by your shop to see what you’ve decorated,” Cloutier said.
