Posted on: Friday, March 25, 2005

By Lee Cataluna
Advertiser Columnist

You think of a cookie thief as a cute rascal kid sneaking a chubby hand into a ceramic jar on the kitchen counter, but not this one.

This was brazen. This was pilau.

In the days leading up to the closing of Big Aloha Cookies, the beloved little cookie boutique on South King street, a woman came in three times to buy the high-end exotic cookies.

She talked about how her family loved the cookies so much that they went through six bags in one day. The third time she came back, on March 11, she said she was buying gift baskets for a company party and could spend a lot of money because "it's on the company account."

She talked about how she was going to dress up the already dressed-up gift baskets she was buying to make them even fancier. She talked story with the soft-spoken, genteel Mizumoto and his two smiling staff members. She bought so much stuff, Mizumoto had to help her carry everything to her car. She left all happy, a satisfied customer.

Police say she wrote a bad check for the whole thing.

The incident is being investigated. Police believe they know the woman's identity and allege that she has done this at other little businesses in the area.

The suspect is a 52-year-old woman with more than three dozen prior arrests and 17 misdemeanor convictions, mostly theft and contempt of court, dating back to the early '70s, police said.

She has a host of aliases, and has been sentenced to serve time over the years, but it was 10 days here, 30 days there, 120 hours community service, a $50 fine.

You think of a thief as someone who sneaks in when you're not looking or works anonymously by blowing your computer firewall or somesuch. It's hard to imagine a thief working this way, face to face, relaxed and smiling, spinning lies in front of four people (including a reporter taking notes) and returning to the store several times.

Maybe she realized the store was closing and figured she'd take what she could amid the swirl of emotions in the last days.

And what was she planning on doing with all those cookies? Fence them? Black market? EBay?

The cookies themselves are certainly valuable. Mizumoto created a most amazing line of flavors, including Thai Opae, which are shrimp-and-basil flavored cookies, and his signature macadamia-arare-nori cookies. They retailed at $6.95 a bag and are now, presumably, collectors' items.

Mizumoto closed the doors to Big Aloha Cookies last Saturday. His cookies aren't available anywhere else.

Mizumoto isn't sure if or when he'll reopen at another location. A tangle with the building landlord made him weary, and looking for another suitable location made him discouraged.

And now this.

Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at 535-8172 or lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com.