A Toronto DJ studio is appealing for help after they say that a rented speaker was stolen during last weekend’s Do West Fest, the latest reported theft tied to a festival that police say drew unprecedented crowds and dozens of theft complaints.
The theft happened on June 6 as thousands of attendees were packed onto Dundas Street West in Little Portugal for the annual street festival.
In an email, Toronto police confirmed to CTV News Toronto that they received a report about the incident and that it remains under investigation.
Police previously said that they responded to 66 calls for service during Do West Fest, including 41 that were theft-related. Of those, 36 reports involved stolen cellphones. Police said that seven arrests were made at the festival, five of them for assault.
“We invested into the best gear to make it more accessible for everybody, because we were all new DJs at one point, and we know how hard it is or how expensive it is to get this equipment,” said Christian Felix, co-owner of Florus Sound Room in Etobicoke.
Felix says that he partnered with Nick’s Jewelry and had a dedicated space in front of that business near Dundas and Dufferin streets during the festival..
He said his team set up a custom DJ booth, sound system and professional-grade equipment valued at roughly $22,000 where they hosted the performance of R&B duo Majid Jordan.
Speaker vanished during teardown
Felix said the only item stolen was a speaker valued at about $1,700 that had been rented from Long & McQuade.
It wasn’t until after the Saturday performance that he said problems first surfaced.
“I started getting texts, they’re like, ‘Yo, can you troubleshoot the speaker, Christian? There’s no sound on the right side,’” he recalled.
Felix said he discovered the speaker had been unplugged, reconnected it and got the music running again.
After the event ended and crews began packing up, a friend asked where the second speaker was.
“I was like, ‘There’s no way. I just came back to tell everyone I saved the freaking party, and then the same speaker I plugged in... was stolen,” he said.
Footage captures speaker being unplugged
The business has since posted security footage online which appears to show a group of people gathered around the speaker and unplugging it moments before it disappeared.
“I think it was just more of a moment of opportunity... the footage shows a group of people standing around the speaker, and then you can see one person just unplug it,” Felix said.
He believes the theft was opportunistic rather than targeted.
“I feel like people just saw a speaker and no one’s around to take it down, and no one’s looking at them,” he said.
Police previously said that crowds were larger than in previous years and forced organizers to close the festival an hour early on Saturday.
Despite the loss, Felix said he does not want the incident to overshadow what was otherwise a successful weekend.
But he says that the prospect of having to come up with $1,700 to cover the cost of the rented speaker is a tough pill to swallow for a small business like his.
“It would help us a lot, being just like a small and local business, to be able to retrieve that. If anybody knows these people, just let us know,” he said.
