OZY Kokcu has lived in the Ararat community for 20 years.<\/p>\n
Many of us know him from his taxi driving days, and now from his kebab van which he runs from the Gum San carpark each week from Wednesday through to Sunday.<\/p>\n
He starts work in the van after he finishes his shift at the Ararat abbatoirs.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is hard work,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Between Wednesday and Saturday of last week, a person or persons took the van\u2019s takings from Mr Kokcu\u2019s car, which totalled $4,000.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I checked it, where I usually put it, it wasn\u2019t there. I was going to go to the bank on Monday, so I put it there and then I got busy. I opened it [the car compartment] and it wasn\u2019t there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Kokcu has informed Ararat Police, but so far, the theft remains unsolved. He believes someone must have been watching his movements from a distance, to know where he had stowed away the van\u2019s takings.<\/p>\n
Mr Kokcu has had his kebab van for one and half years now. It is a family-run business, with Mr Kokcu\u2019s two sons, aged 13 and 9, helping their father out.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are only young. I am trying to teach them to have a good work ethic. We are hard workers. We work hard for a reason.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Kokcu says he had planned to use the takings from his kebab van to return to his native Turkey, to visit his 74-year-old mother, who is unwell. This trip has now been postponed, because of the theft.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I said I was not coming, and had been delayed, she was a bit sad and upset.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Kokcu says hopefully whoever took the money will have a heart and turn it in.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wish they would not do this because people work hard for their money. Sometimes people come here, and they are short of money and I say, \u2018no problem, come and have a feed.\u2019 This is small community so we should stick together,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
If anyone has seen anything or knows anything about this theft, they can report it to Ararat Police on 5355 1500 or Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
OZY Kokcu has lived in the Ararat community for 20 years.
\nMany of us know him from his taxi driving days, and now from his kebab van which he runs from the Gum San carpark each week from Wednesday through to Sunday.
\nBetween Wednesday and Saturday of last week, a person or persons took the van\u2019s takings from Mr Kokcu\u2019s car, which totalled $4,000.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1170,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[31],"class_list":["post-1182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Ozy-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1920&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdqUu4-j4","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1182\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1182"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}