Jonathan Halpern of Shindo-USA lost $40,000+ dollars of goods and neither Mike Maloney, organizer of T.H.E. Show, nor management of the St. Tropez hotel where the incident occurred, seem prepared to do anything about it yet.


According to John DeVore who exhibited with Halpern, by the time they had their products packed and palletized, it was too late to make pickup that evening. Since the pallet was too large to be assembled inside their room, they had packed it in the courtyard. They asked show management where to store it overnight. They were advised to bring it to the large Von Schweikert ballroom. When the Von Schweikert crew emptied out this space with their own gear by 5:15AM the next morning, they called hotel management as instructed by Halpern to have the space locked up. For some unexplainable reason, it took the hotel nearly an hour before someone with the right key was located to lock up the room. By 7:30AM when John DeVore asked to be let into the room to arrange for pickup and shipment of his pallet, it had been cracked open. The quantity of goods stolen suggests one car load. The itemized list of goods lost is as follows:
Shindo Giscours - $24,000
Shindo Aurieges - $3500
Shindo Montille - $3895
Arome CD - $995
Auditorium 23 cables: 2.5 meter- $880; 3 meter- $1040; 4 meter- $1360; 5 meter- $1680
Shindo ICs: 1 meter- $850; 1.5 meter- $1275; 2 meter- $1700
Harmonix Clamp - $550
Records and CDs - Priceless pressings that cannot be replaced


The Von Schweikert crew confirmed that when they vacated the ballroom and called the hotel's front desk to have it locked up, the pallet still sat with its outer shrink wrap undisturbed. Whoever broke it open to abscond with the upper boxes only had less than an hour to do so and was up and about at a very early hour. John DeVore and Jonathan Halpern followed instructions by T.H.E. Show management about where to safely store their pallet overnight. Alas, neither T.H.E. Show nor the St. Tropez seem prepared to assume any responsibility for the theft that occurred on their premises. A police report was filed and John DeVore is investigating whether his insurance will cover the theft. He lost CDs and tools as well. If his insurance won't step in to cover the loss, a lawsuit against T.H.E. Show and the St. Tropez seems nearly unavoidable.


Any information as to the whereabouts of the above stolen goods should be forwarded to Jonathan Halpern at shindo.usa@mac.com. Jonathan is a single owner/operator of a small importation business who subsidizes it by working as an audio salesman at New York's In Living Stereo. Unlike a large multi-national corporation, he cannot simply twitch his shoulders and shrug off the loss as a tough-luck raw deal. If this incident cannot be satisfactorily resolved, 6moons refuses to cover this event next year. Let's hope that the parties involved see fit to honor their implied obligations.