If you make your living by stealing bicycles and are beginning to feel like life is becoming more difficult because of a sudden public awareness of criminals such as yourself, you can blame the moron in your industry who stole 3rd District Councilwoman Suzie Price’s bike.

“It was super-cute, decorated with Hawaiian flowers and everything,” she said. “I had it locked in front of Jones Bicycles on Second Street overnight because it had a flat tire and I wanted them to fix it first thing in the morning.”

Price posted her loss on Facebook last week in reply to another bike-theft post by noted Primal Alchemy chef Paul Buchanan.

“I was at Roe in Belmont Shore and I saw two people just casually walk up and steal two bikes from racks near Bay Shore Library,” Buchanan told us. “I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. One guy took one bike and the other guy took the other.

“We can only take so much of this. You say, ‘Well, it happens,’ but it’s so prevalent now. I know so many people in Belmont Shore who have had their bikes stolen. It’s just getting out of hand.”

The Buchanan-Price postings on Facebook were joined by a host of others reporting similar stories of bike theft, and various neighborhoods’ NextDoor social media boards are rife with more complaints of runaway thievery.

Statistically, bike theft isn’t what you’d term a big problem in Long Beach; in fact, it’s a receding problem. Long Beach Police Department spokesperson Nancy Pratt said bike-theft reports are down 35 percent from last year’s. Year-to-date, there have been 127 bicycle thefts reported, down from 193 during the same period in 2016.

There are a lot of problems, though, with bike-theft statistics. If your bike is stolen from your property, including your garage, it is listed as a garage or residential burglary and it wouldn’t necessarily be included in the bike-theft category. A bike theft could also be listed more generally as petty theft and, again wouldn’t show up as a bike theft.

“Although crime reports suggest property crime, including bike thefts, are down, that is probably not accurate,” said City Prosecutor Doug Haubert. “State law changes have redefined ‘theft’ in recent years and that could change how crime is reported, but not how many crimes are occurring.”

To make statistics even more wobbly is the fact that frequently, the crime goes unreported by the victim. Of course, there are no reports about non-reports, but various studies range from 35 to 50 percent of bike thefts going unreported by victims of the crime.

Still, however the figures are viewed, bike thefts are shown to be down, as is crime in general.

“I don’t think there’s any question that bicycle thefts are down in Long Beach, and down significantly in the 3rd District (which includes Belmont Shore, Naples and the Peninsula),” said Mayor Robert Garcia. “I think part of what’s causing the perception in increase is that 10 years ago, you wouldn’t even hear about it, but now with sites like NextDoor and Facebook, everybody is talking about it, which gives the perception that it’s a big problem.

“It is still a problem,” Garcia acknowledged, “but I think the big story is we have more and more bikes in Long Beach. There’s a big increase of people riding bikes and there’s a larger bike culture in the city than there used to be. I was just talking to he chief (Police Chief Robert Luna) about the problem and he said, ‘We just have more bikes’.”

Additionally, Garcia said, “We’re seeing more people making bike theft more of a profession. They are more expensive now. Bikes are the new currency for thieves.”

Garcia said he encourages people to register their bikes through the National Bike Registry (www.nationalbikeregistry.com), “because we recover bikes all the time, but if they’re not registered, it’s difficult to get them returned to their owners.”

Councilwoman Price is trying to make it even easier to register bikes by taking a couple of items to the city council this month.

“First, I want to explore the option for an app-based registration so the LBPD can have a local registry of bikes and their serial numbers, and I also want to explore more aggressive ways to prosecute the people who steal bikes, because it is a big problem. I’ve done a ton of homeless ride-alongs and if you go to a homeless encampment, you’ll find bikes and bike parts all over the place.”

The consensus is that the best ways to combat bike theft are:

• Be vigilant: “I got a new bike,” said Price, “and I never take my eyes off it.”

• Use a good lock: Chef Buchanan uses a U-Lock for his bike’s frame, with a cable that goes through the wheels. “People say $70 is too much to spend on a lock,” he said. “To protect your $700 bike? Really?”

• Register your bike’s serial number and take a photograph of your bike.

• If your bicycle is stolen, report it to the police. You can report the theft online at the LBPD Online Police Reporting System (www.longbeach.gov/police), although not if the bike is stolen from your property, a business or underground parking structure or if the value of the bike exceeds $950.

“The data on stolen bikes is only as good as the reporting,” said Price. “I hear people say all the time, ‘No, I never reported it.’ If they don’t report it, shame on them.”