©2021, Christian Cassidy
On the night of Monday, February 23rd, 1948, robbers broke into the Standard Dairies plant at 121 Salter Street at Flora Avenue by snapping the padlock off the shipping room door. They approached the safe, broke the dial off, and attempted to punch out the tumbler mechanism. When that didn’t work they set their sights on another valuable, though bulkier, plan B.
Standard Dairies produced milk, cream and butter at this factory. The enterprising thieves stole 931 pounds of butter, most wrapped in one-pound packages. They left behind another 4,000 pounds in the freezer room.
It may seem an odd commodity to steal, but butter was strictly rationed during the war which created grey and black markets. As the post-war supply chain was still sorting itself out the price of the staple remained high at about 70 cents per pound wholesale. This made it a target for theft across the country. (Around the same time there was a heist of $3,400 worth of butter in Montreal.)
February 24, 1948, Winnipeg Tribune
The dairy's night delivery man arrived at the building around midnight to find the broken lock and contacted police. They had little to go on as there were no witnesses - a vehicle coming and going from a commercial dairy was so commonplace that nobody paid attention. A heavy snowfall that evening covered up tire tracks that may have yielded a clue as to what type of vehicle it was.
It seems the thieves had given police the slip (!) until an apparent Good Samaritan named John Buketa contacted the dairy looking for a reward.
John Buketa worked for the family business, Buketa's Snack Bar at 713 McPhillips Street, along with his parents, Leon and Mary, who opened the store in the 1920s. They all lived in the residence at the back.
The family was known to police.
In February 1937, John and his father were arrested as part of "a gang of alleged shopbreakers" that hit several businesses across the city. Stolen merchandise such as cigarettes were sold at the Buketa's store. (The pair went on trial in March for receiving stolen goods, though papers don't seem to have reported on the outcome.)
In August 1941, John Buketa was fined $100 and lost his driving license for the remainder of the year after the hit and run of a 14-year-old boy on his bicycle. Leon was charged and fined in October 1941 for selling liquor illegally.
Three days after the robbery, Buketa contacted the dairy asking if there was a reward for the person who found the butter. The dairy notified the police and the McPhillips Street store was raided later that day. They found 615 pounds of butter, retail value of around $650, stashed in a shed attached to the residence. It was still in the Standard Dairies packaging.
The story Buketa gave the police was that he was walking his dog along McPhillips Street the night of the robbery when he noticed two men get out of a van and unload something behind a woodpile near Jarvis Street. He waited until they were finished then went to check it out and found the butter. He went back home to get a toboggan and brought the stash home.
As for the three day delay, Buketa said he wasn't sure if he should call the police and eventually decided to ask the dairy if it was offering a reward.
The police were having none of it and arrested him.
March 16, 1948, Winnipeg Tribune
Buketa appeared in police court the next day and was remanded until his trial the following month. No charge was formally laid against him. Police had him on possession of stolen goods, but their investigation continued into whether or not he was one of the robbers.
The butter theft trail took place on March 16, 1948 in front of Magistrate M. H. Garton. Buketa, who was charged with receiving stolen goods, decided to represent himself.
Buketa stuck to his original story about finding the butter behind a woodpile. Detectives who examined the woodpile said there was no evidence - tire tracks, footprints, etc. - to suggest that the area around the woodpile had been accessed recently.
Buketa told the court, "The next day I read in the papers that the Standard Dairy had been broken into and 940 pounds of butter stolen. I didn't know whether to turn in the butter to the police or not. I though the dairy might offer a reward for it."
Magistrate Garton was unsympathetic and at the end of the trail said to Buketa, "This is the same old story. If there were no receivers there would be no thieves. Receiving is considered a more heinous offence than stealing. I sentence you to six months hard labour."
After jail, Buketa went back to work at the family store and did not make the local newspapers again. Mary died at the residence in February 1961 and Leon died there in May 1962. John then sold the business and the building became home to McPhillips Heating and Appliance.
The 1965 street directory, the last one that is available online, shows John Buketa living on Pritchard Avenue and a "student", presumably an apprentice, at Lansdowne Service Station at 1345 McPhillips. He eventually moved to Alberta and after his death in 1922 the Public Trustee of Alberta placed ads in the Winnipeg Free Press looking for next of kin.
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