After losing thousands of dollars in spoiled food and lost business because of the recent blackouts, the owners of the Star Store at Bayview probably thought it couldn’t get much worse.

It could, and did.

Sometime between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning last week, a thief took the Star Store’s generator that had been parked outside the grocery store at Bayview Corner.

Gene Felton, owner of both the grocery store and the 3Cats Café, said he had purchased the generator during the last big windstorm. The big generator was chained and locked to the ice machine outside the back door to the restaurant on Bayview Road.

“Someone had to cut chains and cables before they could carry it away,” Felton said.

Felton said he is frustrated with himself because he was thinking it was time to move the generator into storage.

“On Tuesday, I thought to myself ‘It’s time to move it in.’ Then it was gone Wednesday morning,” he said.

The generator cost $1,700.

During earlier power outages, however, both the Star Store and the 3Cats Café lost thousands of dollars of food from the December snowstorm alone.

“We threw away well over $4,000 in food from the Bayview store, more from the Langley store because it is larger,” Felton said.

In Bayview they lost all their milk, ice cream and fresh meat and everything in the deli case.

“We lost $5,300 worth of ice cream alone,” Felton said.

Felton decided he wasn’t going to go through that again, and bought a 7,000-watt Sycamore generator to power up the Star Store deli and the 3Cats’ refrigerators.

With a generator at their Langley location, the Star Store was able to keep a small refrigerator and walk-in cooler powered up.

The Island County Sheriff’s Office is investigating the theft; anyone with information should call 321-5111, ext 7310.

Gayle Saran can be reached at 221-5300 or gsaran@southwhidbeyrecord.com.