Fady Yakub, the owner of Habebe Cafe & Hookah Lounge in Castaic, was surprised to hear hundreds of undelivered Amazon packages had been tossed behind his business.
Yakub said his hookah business is struggling, and he regularly visits in the morning to check up on the progress. His employees quickly approached him, which alarmed him that something was wrong.
“I asked him, what’s going on?” Yakub said. “He said, ‘Boss, in the trash there are a lot of packages and they are closed.’”
Besides running his business, Yakub has worked at the local post office for over 20 years. He felt compelled to help and reached out to the Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station. But, he said, they advised him to contact Amazon so they could pick up the packages.
Yakub feared for his safety because of the high value of items in his truck; the other concern was the potential to be accused of stealing the packages.
“Somebody can come and punch me or steal my car,” Yakub said. “One time it happened to me, and they broke the glass in my car and stole my phone.”
Yakub has a box truck and decided to drop the packages off at the Amazon warehouse. He quickly filled the truck with the packages and drove to the warehouse.
“I know where the Amazon location is because the Amazon warehouse is behind the postal office by my job,” Yakub said.
He spoke to an Amazon supervisor, who gathered a team of workers and collected the packages. Yakub said he wasn’t 100% sure of the number of packages but felt that there were hundreds of packages returned.
Yakub still isn’t sure why hundreds of packages ended up in a dumpster behind his business but believes it might be irresponsible workers at Amazon.
Yakub never received a “thank you” from Amazon but said customers have shown support for his work and have started a GoFundMe account for his struggling business due to COVID-19.
You can support the GoFundMe at www.gofundme.com/f/support-local-businessmen.
