By Maya Morales and Katherine Quezada
At least 10 businesses were hit by smash-and-grab burglars, having their glass doors smashed in and front cash boxes stolen early Thursday morning in locations spread throughout the Santa Clarita Valley.
Deputy Robert Jensen, spokesman for the Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station, confirmed there were 10 business that reported their glass doors or windows smashed in.
He said deputies are still actively investigating the break-ins and it is too early to link all the incidents together or with previous burglaries from earlier this year.
Saugus burglaries
Brian Kawasaki, the owner of the Papa Johns off Seco Canyon Road, said this was the fifth time his Saugus location had been burglarized.
“They don’t really get much cash because there’s not much to get, but the real cost of damage is the door and equipment,” said Kawasaki. “It wasn’t too bad this time. They might have gotten a couple hundred of dollars.”
Having gone through it five times, Kawasaki said, “It’s like ordering pizza at this point,” the repairman knows his measurements and glass type by now.
This time, he said, a brick was used to break the glass door and set off the alarm system. He said his camera shows four individuals who broke in at approximately 3:20 a.m., wearing masks, so it was hard to capture a physical description of them, and he suspected there was a fifth person involved waiting in the vehicle to get away.
“They were in and out in less than a minute, so they knew clearly know how stores are laid out,” said Kawasaki. “They get in, see if they can find anything and get out. Doesn’t seem worth it but maybe after nine times it is.”
Kawasaki said a deputy who took his incident report said he was among at least nine businesses that were burglarized.
“I think it is getting more frequent,” said Kawasaki. “They seem to be hitting a lot of small businesses in the area. The police have been super responsive, but they’re probably really stretched. It’s also a quiet town at 3 in the morning.”
He said moving forward he will be trying more preventative measures to decrease the chance of this happening again to his location.
At 3:30 a.m., the Baskin Robbins and Boba Master in the Bouquet Canyon Plaza were also burglarized in a similar way.
Michael, a manager at Baskin Robbins who declined to provide his last name, said at approximately 3:30 a.m. at least two individuals were seen on camera breaking the glass door with a brick and ran in to take a front cash box.
The owner of Boba Master, who declined to provide their name, said they also had two individuals break into the store around 3:30 a.m. by throwing a brick inside and jumping over the counter to steal the front cash box and damage their computer system.
The owner declined to provide additional comment on the incident because she wanted to wait for a deputy to arrive to take her statement about what had happened.
Castaic burglaries
Across town in the Castaic Village Shopping Center, three restaurants were burglarized under similar circumstances, and another location just south of the center was hit within minutes.
Chabelo’s Mexican Grill is a family-owned business run by a couple who only identified themselves as Jose and Laura and said they were notified of the break-in by deputies.
“They needed to speak to us, see what the damage was,” Jose said, and they both arrived at their business at approximately 6:30 a.m. where they were met with a shattered front glass door and a brick sitting in the middle of the space inside the restaurant.
According to security camera footage provided by Jose, the suspects forced entry with the brick at 4:20 a.m., and were out of the location in about 40 seconds to a minute.
It appeared that two suspects who Jose believes were men covering their face with hoodies entered the location and took the cash register, the cash drawer, the point-of-sale system, and cash tips, according to the footage.
When the two people were breaking into Chabelo’s, two other individuals broke into the next-door business owned by Leide Queiroz called Acai Sun Fit Life, which sells acai bowls and vegetarian dishes, according to Jose.
Queiroz was alone inside her business at 10 a.m. stating that she was closed for the day due to the burglary.
Since opening her business about a year and a half ago, this was her first experience with a crime impacting her acai store. The suspects shattered her glass door with a brick and stole her register, tip money, and POS system.
“It’s uncomfortable. I don’t think anyone needs to do this. Everyone can work and earn decent money and live a decent life,” Queiroz said, adding that she was grateful she wasn’t at her business when the incident happened.
She often works late into the night preparing catering orders and handling other tasks to keep her business running, but this time she happened to leave earlier.
“God is with us, and I’m grateful I was not here,” she said.
Jose and Laura were in the process of replacing their cash register and POS system while handling communications with repair workers who would replace their broken glass door, attempting to maintain their regular daily operations.
“I know that insurance doesn’t cover any loss of business until three days later,” Jose said, which impacts business, so they were focused on handling what they could before lunch rush hour.
For the local couple, this isn’t their first experience with a burglary. Just a few years ago, suspects broke in through a small glass window, and over the course of their decade-long run at the location, they’ve been targeted around four times, Jose said.
Jose was grateful that the suspects only took a small amount of cash, and not his business computer and other business-related items that remained untouched.
“Thank God,” he said in Spanish.
On the other end of the plaza, Vincenzo’s Pizzeria was burglarized but only an empty cash register was stolen as the local business was shut down in January of this year, said business owner Lupita, who did not provide her last name.
Lupita was notified by the location’s management company that her pizzeria was hit only a few hours before 11 a.m., she said, and when she called the SCV Sheriff’s Station, they had already taken a report and she was told to call back within a week, she said.
“We were surprised,” she added, as many local residents knew they were no longer in business, therefore there was nothing to steal.
One item that made it through the burglary was her POS system, which was covered with a paper bag. Lupita believes the suspects possibly overlooked it due to their rush to get in and out quickly.
The fourth location that was hit near the plaza was the Domino’s Pizza located on the 31700 block of Castaic Road.
In a phone call with The Signal, Jesus Gonzalez, the assistant manager of the location, confirmed the business was also broken into at approximately 4:12 a.m.
“I was coming in to open the store at 9 a.m. When I got here both my supervisors were in the store. The door was gone,” he said, and deputies arrived to take a police report.
The only damaged property was the door and “they took some soda, two liters of Sprite but that was it, they didn’t really take anything else,” Gonzalez said.
Shortly before 2 p.m. Thursday, Lupita notified The Signal of half a dozen cash registers and POS systems laying on the side of The Old Road just 2 miles south from the location of the reported burglaries.
In security video footage provided by a nearby business, a white vehicle is seen stopping in front of their location and numerous individuals are seen disposing of the registers at approximately 4:29 a.m.
Jensen said deputies were investigating whether the cash registers were linked to the burglaries after they were made aware of them along The Old Road.
Canyon Country burglaries
Joe Brown, owner of Tomato Joe’s Pizza and Taps, said it had been the third time the Canyon Country restaurant had been a victim of a break-in.
Brown said his camera footage shows three individuals breaking the glass door and running inside. From there they set off the alarm and the suspects appeared to become disoriented from the alarm. One ran back out toward the car but the other two individuals ran to the back to look for valuables.
They weren’t able to steal any money, but they did damage a receipt printer, said Brown.
“The damage these people are doing to small businesses is horrible,” said Brown.
He added that he wanted to see the SCV Sheriff’s Station get serious about investigating and catching the suspects. He said the string of burglaries has been going on too long and it is hurting the small businesses more.
Another confirmed location to be hit was the Baskin-Robbins off Soledad Canyon Road. A manager, who declined to provide their name, said their camera footage shows four individuals breaking the glass door at 4:53 a.m. and rushing in to take the front register.
To the manager’s knowledge, the cash box had little to no cash in it. No one was in the store at the time of the break-in.
Jersey Mike’s Subs off Golden Valley Road was also confirmed by Jensen to be among the businesses that were burglarized. A representative declined to comment on Thursday afternoon.
