'Bearded Bandit' strikes again

BY COLBY FRAZIER
DAILY SOUND STAFF WRITER

A manager at a Carpinteria bank foiled a robbery in progress yesterday morning after he asked a man wearing dark glasses and fake facial hair to remove his disguise, an official with the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department said.
The incident occurred just before 10 a.m. at a Santa Barbara Bank and Trust at 5420 Carpinteria Ave.
Sgt. Mike McCoy, a spokesman with the Sheriff’s Department, said the suspect approached a teller and began reading a note. He said the suspect did not brandish a weapon and no money was taken.


While the suspect was reading the note, Lt. Butch Arnoldi said the bank manager confronted the man and asked him to remove his hat and glasses.
“He told him that’s [bank] policy and the guy turned around and ran out of the bank,” Arnoldi said.
As this exchange was occurring, Arnoldi said a bank teller sounded the alarm.
The man was described as wearing a white, long sleeved T-shirt with a brown baseball cap. Witnesses said he was 6-feet, 2-inches tall and weighed 180 pounds.
Four hours after the thwarted robbery in Carpinteria, Arnoldi said a man who fit this description and was also wearing fake facial hair robbed a Union Bank in Atascadero.
Yesterday’s incidents are the most recent in a string of robberies up and down the coast all perpetrated by a man wearing fake facial hair.
On April 18 the man, known to some as the “bearded bandit,” robbed a Santa Barbara Bank and Trust in the 3900 block of State St.
“The man’s been keeping busy,” Arnoldi said.
Many banks in the area have posted new rules that state all customers must remove hats and sunglasses before entering the bank, he said.
Though it worked out smoothly this time, Arnoldi said he doesn’t recommend confronting people inside banks who don’t remove their hats or glasses. He said it was a matter of “luck” that the suspect wasn’t armed, or if he was, didn’t use a weapon.
“It’s not something you want to be doing,” he said.