Restitution made, but search for ‘Steam-Trooper’ art taken from pub continues

In an incident Denise Cullen is calling the “Bachelor Party Steampunk Art Mask Heist,” a piece of three-dimensional art was taken June 16 from Cullen’s Tannery Pub and Saloon at 131 First St.

The person who took the mask has since made restitution, but told Cullen he doesn’t know what happened to it from the time he left her pub and when he returned.

As far as Benicia Police Department is concerned, the case is closed because Cullen chose not to press charges. But Cullen said she still hopes the mask will be found.

Cullen made the mask using a flat-backed “Star Wars” stormtrooper mask. Because it is flat rather than a costume helmet, it fit on the wall at the pub.

Cullen’s bar mixes its former Irish pub heritage with steampunk, a fantasy and science fiction genre based on mechanical extrapolations from 19th-century technology, especially involving the works of such authors as Jules Verne and H.G. Wells.

In keeping with that style, Cullen took the traditional stormtrooper mask, gave it an antique white patina and accented it with bronze and filigree. In the center she used a plumbing fixture drain to simulate a breathing apparatus and added wire mesh-covered hoses.

Someone described the mask as a mix of “Star Wars” bounty hunter Boba Fett and the singer Lady Gaga. It was so new, she hadn’t taken pictures of the artwork when she hung it on the wall to share space with the pub’s Steam-Spiderman and Steam-Iron Man mask she also has made.

But the Steam-Trooper was the most ornate of the three, she said. And had she known it was so irresistible, she said, she would have bolted it to the wall.

Instead, after the bachelor party, her husband discovered the mask was missing.

“He thought I might have taken it off the wall,” Cullen said. She didn’t learn of the theft until she came in to work.

Because she had to work her shift, she couldn’t look at the pub’s security camera footage until later. “I went back the next day, saw who he came in with,” she said. “He was part of a bachelor party.”

Cullen said the man took the mask off the wall, then left with it. He returned later without the mask. The party went on until early June 17. “My birthday,” she said.

She posted part of the security video footage online, asking customers to help her identify the man whose face the camera caught. Some of those helping her search for the man attended the wedding the next day in Vallejo.

Cullen said she had hoped early on that the man would return the mask. Instead, he came into the pub to say he had continued drinking after he left and has no memory of what happened to the mask. He paid Cullen for the loss.

Cullen said she believes him, and in exchange for restitution, she decided not to prosecute.

“He bought it from us. He doesn’t know where it is,” she said. However, she’s hoping the mask will resurface. “We’re looking for his lost mask.” Anyone who finds it may call the pub at 707-637-5300.

Meanwhile, she’s considering her options for the blank space on the wall. “I was going to try to replicate it if I could,” she said. “Now that I know people want them so bad they’ll steal them, maybe we’ll make more and sell them.”