The remains of the front plate glass window of A Plus Shoe Repair sat in a bag on the shop’s floor after a Tuesday morning break-in. The owner’s son, Javier, who works at the family-owned business, told East Side Feed that they didn’t know when the crime had occurred–just that the window was smashed when they arrived in the morning.
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The window had been replaced when East Side Feed arrived at around 2:30 p.m., but chunks of glass still littered the floor and shelving. Javier said they were previously located in the space next door where they had a gate. His father, also Javier, says they moved to this new, smaller space in the same building just three weeks ago, after operating in the previous store for twenty years. The shop does not have surveillance cameras.
The nail salon located in the same building was untouched. An employee at Betty’s Nails said the shoe repair shop’s owners were already cleaning up when she arrived.
Back in June, we covered a similar break-in at Pil Pil just a few blocks away, where the restaurant’s front door was shattered and the register emptied. Just as in this incident, the thieves got away with very little cash. At the time, Pil Pil also reported that it had not been the first time their storefront was broken into.
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The neighborhood has also seen some more high-profile, high-cost retail burglaries in the past year, with perpetrators breaking into the Lululemon at 66th and Third Avenue and getting away with $12,000 worth of merchandise last July. In October, thieves got away with three handbags worth over $32,000 in a smash-and-grab at the Chanel store at 64th and Madison.
Javier and Javier feel lucky they didn’t lose much and are still operating as usual. The report with the NYPD had not yet been filed as of Tuesday afternoon.
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