Permanent hire gear stolen who does what?

Lisa Lane-Collins

Lisa Lane-Collins

Sophomore
Dec 9, 2012
270
0
16
Adelaide, Australia
Well this was bound to happen, someone's lifted 3/4s of my JBL PRX rig from a venue in town (and my DJ gear too). Went walking during the week, no one realised until today *cue mad scramble to find something to replace it*. (Of course they did not bother with all my budget foldback speakers....or the second sub, guess it did not fit).

I only have a verbal contract, not insured personally (the boss thinks it can be covered by the pub's insurance), I can supply replacement speakers (no where near as good) and DJ equipment. So, what happens now? As long as I supply replacement gear, do I go on charging the same weekly fee? Is it the venue's responsibility to replace what's been stolen or mine?
 
Re: Permanent hire gear stolen who does what?

Local laws apply, of course.

As a supplier of rental equipment as far as I'm concerned until the items are returned to me (or purchased in some way) the original renter is still renting the items. Replacement gear adds more rental fees. The verbal contract may be difficult to enforce, but once again your local laws will determine that. Of course, I'll do what I can for a good customer, but there is no real obligation behind it.
 
Re: Permanent hire gear stolen who does what?

Lisa Lane-Collins said:
I only have a verbal contract, not insured personally (the boss thinks it can be covered by the pub's insurance), I can supply replacement speakers (no where near as good) and DJ equipment. So, what happens now? As long as I supply replacement gear, do I go on charging the same weekly fee? Is it the venue's responsibility to replace what's been stolen or mine?
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What happens now is what should have been spelled out in the contract. It will really depend on the insurance policy if your gear is going to be covered. Most policies will NOT automatically cover another vendors gear that is left there. If he says that the gear is his to get the insurance money, that is insurance fraud, and I wouldn't want to be anywhere near that.

What happens now is you should immediately put together a contract for your services. It can be an open ended agreement that can be cancelled by either party at any time. Pubs are notorious for not wanting to sign agreements, so they have flexibility to change at will. Taking that into consideration in the contract eliminates that concern. The contract needs to specify liability for both you and them.

As far as the gear goes, without a contract, I'm not sure that you could force the venue to be liable. YOU should have insurance on your gear for that purpose. Make sure the policy actually covers what you plan to do. Leaving gear unattended is a different policy than if you are protecting the gear while it is in your possession.

Suck that this happened to you, but take it as a learning lesson and don't let it happen again!
 
Re: Permanent hire gear stolen who does what?

oops...

Verbal contract? OK, what was that verbal contract? Or was it a casual no-contract wink and a nod contract? The purpose of written contracts is so that both parties understand exactly what they agree to. The fact that you don't have it written down doesn't mean that it isn't a contract, but there does need to be an actual agreement between two parties, verbal or otherwise.

Was the venue broken into and robbed, or was your gear removed during normal business operation?


JR
 
Re: Permanent hire gear stolen who does what?

Not this place, it's somewhat in the process of making the transition from being an abandoned, empty pub to one that's open and operating - ergo, open to the public but super low foot traffic (in fact, No sales on Monday, not one bloody drink), mid renovations, no cctv yet (something they've speculated about). It would have been so easy to walk through the front bar, out to the venue, bump everything out the fire escape without anyone noticing....they'd have had to know the stuff was there, and that the door to the venue can never be properly locked (only an illusion of being locked).

So, I suppose I drop the ball by not having insurance, and they do by not having cameras, least we've discovered a serious security risk in that space...
 
Re: Permanent hire gear stolen who does what?

Lisa Lane-Collins said:
Not this place, it's somewhat in the process of making the transition from being an abandoned, empty pub to one that's open and operating - ergo, open to the public but super low foot traffic (in fact, No sales on Monday, not one bloody drink), mid renovations, no cctv yet (something they've speculated about). It would have been so easy to walk through the front bar, out to the venue, bump everything out the fire escape without anyone noticing....they'd have had to know the stuff was there, and that the door to the venue can never be properly locked (only an illusion of being locked).

So, I suppose I drop the ball by not having insurance, and they do by not having cameras, least we've discovered a serious security risk in that space...
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Lisa,

Camera's, locks and security are only the first line of defense for an installed system. When I had systems installed in shady bars, I made sure that everything valuable was flown, bolted to the floor with stripped bolt heads or rigged in such a way that the only way to get it out would be to rent a plasma cutter and a genie lift (which is exactly what I did when said bar went out of business). Many people tried to mess with my system, one of them may have been the owner just before he went bankrupt, but the bottom line was that it simply required too many tools and too much labor to steal the system--so it remained intact. When you go out and repurchase all of your equipment to make money, just remember that anyone is potentially a criminal. And most criminals are lazy, looking for the easy score.

For truly sadistic sound company owners, epoxying hidden razor blades to your speaker handles also works well.
 
Re: Permanent hire gear stolen who does what?

Brian jojade said:
That right there can void many insurance policies. If you knew that the door couldn't be locked, why did you leave your gear there unattended??
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Naivety or ignorance take your pick.

I love the idea of making the good PA too much hassle to remove. The other lesson I kinda took from this is people are less likely to steal things that look budget/no name/are old and heavy (my fh1s are sitting in the venue just where I left them). I should get some more peavey boxes and pimp out the insides ah ha! (No seriously, gonna look into flying and bolting things down, and cameras. In the mean time, the stuff that is in there is lowest of the low end, am hoping its relative worthlessness means no one will bother coming back).
 
Re: Permanent hire gear stolen who does what?

Grrrrrr, I think I found my thief!!!! But I can't prove it. I've been trying to lure him out into the open by getting other people to contact him saying they are interested in buying and does he have any x around to sell but he's not taking the bait. Any ideas? (Other than the obvious, and already done, go to the cops - who did nothing).
 
Re: Permanent hire gear stolen who does what?

The people who do stuff like that are not very bright.

Make it easy for the police if you have evidence that points to some individual, make sure the police can ID your equipment should they stumble upon it (pictures?), but do not take matters into your own hands.

Did I mention that criminals are not very bright?

JR
 
Re: Permanent hire gear stolen who does what?

Good for you Lisa, unbelievable that the stuff would be there four weeks after you informed the police about your suspicions.
Of course the police will claim that this is a result of their swift reaction :lol:
 
Re: Permanent hire gear stolen who does what?

Per Søvik said:
Good for you Lisa, unbelievable that the stuff would be there four weeks after you informed the police about your suspicions.
Of course the police will claim that this is a result of their swift reaction :lol:
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Police don't have a swift reaction (unless they find out there is a sale at the donut shop!).
When my stepmother had her car vandalized it took over 24hrs for the police to come out! They kinda knew who did it and if they had come out straight away they could have caught them.
 
Re: Permanent hire gear stolen who does what?

Daniel Levi said:
Police don't have a swift reaction (unless they find out there is a sale at the donut shop!).
When my stepmother had her car vandalized it took over 24hrs for the police to come out! They kinda knew who did it and if they had come out straight away they could have caught them.
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Police typically have limited resources and do not respond to property issues generally covered by insurance as vigorously as violent personal attacks.

It is good that they caught the miscreants and hopefully returned the gear in a timely fashion.

I had a motorcycle stolen back in the '70s and even though the police recovered it almost immediately (I literally saw the pukes steal it from my garage and gave them a full description of their van and license plate #), the police screwed with me for months refusing to release the bike back to me saying it was evidence.

I was also subpoenaed to testify in court, but they just had me show up to use as leverage to get the weak minded thieves to accept their plea deal.

I finally had to threaten the police with potential damages for the fact that the bike was not properly prepared for being held in storage. This was an invented threat on my part, but it worked and they finally released my bike back to me after something like 3 months in their custody.

I still give the OZ police an attaboy for capture and recovery, and like i said the crooks are not the sharpest sticks in the bunch.

JR
 
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