FLORIDA — Police continue to investigate last week’s theft of approximately 4,000 copies of the University of North Florida’s student newspaper.
The Spinnaker is distributed to 30 locations at 9 a.m. every Wednesday, editor Josh Gore said. On Thursday morning he heard about the problem.
“At first I thought the distributor missed a box,” Gore said. “But when more reports came in I knew they were stolen.”
He said almost every bin was cleared.
“We’re kind of baffled by it because there’s no gotcha stories in that issue,” Gore said. “There was not a controversial editorial.”
UNF Police Chief John Dean said there are several leads, but at this point police do not know why they were taken.
Gore said the last time The Spinnaker was stolen was in the 2001 school year, when the cross-country team stole copies of an issue as a prank. The team apologized for the incident.
Two thousand copies were reprinted and distributed Friday afternoon. Gore said there have been no complaints from advertisers so far.
“Hopefully this isn’t really an issue because the papers weren’t off the stands for more than a day.”
Gore said the paper lobbied for a notice to the university community calling for information, but the president’s office declined.