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HAMPTON - A trial date will be set on Tuesday for two men two Saint John men charged in connection with a series of smash-and-grab thefts.

Troy Anthony Beveridge, 40, and Keith Oliver Dixon, 42, appeared in Hampton provincial court last week but there were no lawyers there to represent them. They have been held in custody since their Sept. 11 arrest and subsequent bail denial. They are accused of breaking into several convenience stores and stealing cigarettes and lottery tickets. They were charged after an intensive police surveillance spanning the jurisdictions of the Rothesay Regional Police Force, Saint John Police Force and Grand Bay-Westfield RCMP last month.

Beveridge and Dixon are charged together with breaking into Daly's Convenience Store on the Hampton Road in Quispamsis on Sept. 9 and stealing $2,400 in cigarettes; crashing through the front glass door of Cole's Ultramar on Highway 100 in Nauwigewauk on Sept. 10 and taking more than $700 in cigarettes and $1,100 in lottery tickets; and the following night committing the same crime and getting away with $2,200 in cigarettes at Grand Bay-Westfield's Irving Blue Canoe on River Valley Drive.

All three break, enter and theft charges are being pursued by way of indictment. The men pleaded both not guilty to all charges and elected trial by provincial court judge.

Beveridge is also charged with wearing a bandana to cover his face in the Cole's break of Sept. 10, which he denies. And Dixon denies an additional charge of failing to abide by a court undertaking to keep the peace and be of good behaviour on the same date. Saint John police are continuing their investigation into similar break, enter and thefts that occurred in the port city in the same time frame.