KITCHENER -- Business owners of a strip mall at Seabrook Drive and Fisher-Hallman Road in Kitchener were greeted by an unwanted sight Thursday morning after someone broke into their stores and stole cash.
Owners of Luxe Nail Salon, Gino’s Pizza and Roti Junction Shawarma said two men came by the store around 6:30 a.m.
“This is like a really family (oriented) and safe neighbourhood, so it’s weird that something like that happened,” said Andrea Moreno, the manager of Luxe Nail Bar.
Moreno said security footage showed the suspects smashing through the door with a rock. They then emptied out the cash register, taking an unknown amount of money.
According to Moreno, the nail bar had to cancel several morning appointments to deal with the situation.
She said the issue seems to be common in the area, and now she worries about the safety and security of her customers and employees
“It was like ‘oh, it happened to us,’ because how I told you, we have seen the same situation in this plaza a few months ago. And I think it was last week it happened to a salon in the next plaza,” Moreno said.
“I don’t know what’s going on here. This is the third time in a row. Since I started this store, this is the third time it has happened to my store,” Manish Patel, owner of Gino’s Pizza on Seabrook Drive, said.
Patel said at one time he had eight cameras for surveillance, but after a break in in 2019 he added another eight.
“This plaza in particular, this is the sixth break in in the last three years. Personally myself, I feel like it’s unsafe right now for the business,” Patel said.
Officers at the scene said it looks like the two suspects walked to the plaza or maybe parked across the street.
Patel said each store has a security system, but for some reason he didn’t receive a call from the security agency when the break in happened. Now, the security company is looking into what went wrong.
Waterloo regional police said they're investigating the break-ins.
Anyone with information is asked to contact police or Crime Stoppers.
