Bethel Business Burgled For Over $50K In Rare Sneakers

BETHEL, CT — Police are investigating the theft of over $50,000 worth of rare sneakers from a local Bethel business.

Colin Hoffman, proprietor of A.shoe.affair, said the pricey kicks were swiped from his boutique around 2 a.m. on Thursday. Among the 11 pairs of sneakers taken were two pairs of Nike Dunk SB Low Freddy Kruegers. Hoffman paid $50,000 for the shoes, the pride of his 91 Greenwood Avenue boutique

The business owner said the thieves who nicked the Nikes knew their way around.

"They took almost my entire case of high-end sneakers," Hoffman told Patch, "but, really, what they wanted were the Freddy Kruegers."

And who wouldn't? Freddy Krueger is to sneakers what Honus Wagner is to baseball cards. Named after the villain in the "Nightmare on Elm Street" movie franchise, and sporting the killer's signature red, green, silver, and blood-splattered color scheme, Nike slashed production in 2007 when studio New Line Cinema presented a cease-and-desist letter. Retailers were asked to return the trademark infringements to the cobbler, and they did, mostly. Just about 30 pairs made their way into the hands of collectors, according to pop culture collectors blog Otis.

"These things are so rare they belong in a museum," Hoffman told Patch. "It makes me want to throw up, knowing people have these things who don't deserve them." He says he has tapped into the network of sneaker collectors in the tri-state area and around the country, and the community is both pulling for him and keeping an eye out for the super-rare shoes.

Hoffman said that owning A.shoe.affair and bringing high-end sneakers to Bethel at reasonable prices has been his dream since his childhood in the town, when sneaker stores were rare and their prices out of reach for Bethel kids. His plan was to "bring the rarest shoes on the planet (to his store). I wanted celebrities to come to the store, influencers."

After finally paying off the cost of the Freddy Kruegers by working 120-hour weeks for most of 2021, the theft "just evaporated 4 to 6 months of my life," Hoffman said.

Hoffman is asking that anyone with any more information about the theft contact him on SnapChat @colin56561 or Facebook.