City Storage/City Cellars/Storage Pro Theft in San Francisco

New guy here, long time lurker but haven’t been on here much since the Premier Cru debacle.

I just want to make anyone in the San Francisco area aware that City Storage/City Cellars/Storage Pro at 500 Indiana is not a safe place to store wine. I had two large walk in units stolen, just under 3500 bottles, which is frankly insane given how much effort it must have been to move that much wine unnoticed.

Short story, disc locks were ground off, all contents removed from the lockers(sans shelves of course) and different locks that looked the same were placed on the units.

Sadly, many bottles that cannot be replaced. I would recommend anyone using the facility invest in the best locks that they can that would not make it easy to grind them off(shackle protection, etc) I thought mine were sufficient but clearly they were not.

I was not the only one that was broken into and when I inquired it apparently had happened a couple years ago unknown to me. Clearly not something they are going to advertise.

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No cameras? And don’t people need a code or something to get into the facility?

No code necessary, just a sign in sheet. Cameras not in the appropriate places.

Ugh. Thanks for the info. I’ve been thinking about leaving them anyway. When I signed up in Aug 2020, the cost was $29/mo per small locker. They keep raising it 1-2 times a year. It’s now $57/mo for the same unit.

Fudge, what is the insurance payout? 60%

I know someone that had his stuff insured and insurance only paid out lowest wholesale price not the price they could actually purchase it for.

Insurances are very different in how they handle losses.

My insurance is stated value. I update my sheet quarterly from CT and I pay my premium based on those values and they pay what’s on the sheet in case of loss.

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Who is your provider?

Bluewater.

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Good to know. I didnt include values on my bottles when I sent my spreadsheet, so probably time to adjust.

Thanks for the PSA, Gabe, and sorry to hear this happened to you.

I have lockers at that facility and they do have at least two very prominent cameras that record all cars coming in and out of the parking area.

Did the theft happen during business hours? I would expect that moving close to 300 cases must have taken some time and drawn attention…

Holy Moly, that is just awful - sorry for your loss here @GabeD

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This. I’ve had stated value in the past and currently have replacement value. That said, claim is not settled yet.

So short story, investigating still ongoing and I don’t know much yet. The cameras of the facility are all in the garage area. There are no cameras in the aisles or in the actual storage locker area. I did not know this or I probably would have moved out. Camera quality is apparently not very good either. It is not clear to me where the van parked that loaded up my stolen wine. And yes, hard for me to believe that it was not noticed. 75% of them were in OWC and yes during business hours. I have not seen any footage just heard from the police. Apparently, past thefts have been others renting lockers and stealing from one locker and putting in their own to avoid suspicion and moving the wine at a later time.

Gabe, I’m really sorry to hear this! The thieves would need a decent sized commercial truck, not a van. No way 5 1/2 pallets of wine, even if the cases were on pallets, would fit in a van.

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Also if you haven’t already, I’d let stores and auction houses know and send them an inventory list.

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Similar experience with Vince.

Really hoping they would upgrade their security system all around.

Cameras installed to satisfy insurance requirements are often useless. Might give you an estimate of height and weight, but not much else. A good parking lot camera that gets plate numbers is too often your best hope.

Very sorry to hear this happened and I hope insurance pays out well. I store some of my collection there, albeit a much smaller number of bottles so I appreciate the heads up.

And here I had been thinking lately a trip to the offsite was in order. Investing in a bigger home setup looking increasingly attractive.

It would be great if anyone who talks to management about this / security enhancement could share their notes here (or in private DMs…)

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