DEL.ICIO.USSome smash-and-grab robberies followed by store closings
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sunday, July 05, 2009
Fashion retailer Dana Spinola has an urgent request for Atlanta city officials: “Help! We want to stay open.”
Last week, Spinola’s Midtown business — fab’rik, one of her three metro Atlanta stores — was broken into by one of the smash-and-grab burglary crews that have increasingly plagued city merchants. It was, she figures, the 15th break-in during that store’s seven years of business.
John Spink/jspink@ajc.com
The co-owner of Blue Genes, Jennifer Arrendale steps out of the broken glass of her store Monday after seeing it for the first time. Atlanta police investigated the crime scene In the latest smash-and-grab robbery, where thieves broke into a blue jeans store near Lenox Mall in Atlanta at 3400 Around Lenox Rd NE Ste 214 early Monday, June 8, 2009 making off with two van loads of merchandise. The bandits used a rock to smash the front window of the Blue Genes store at the Shops Around Lenox, adjacent to Lenox Mall. The robbery occurred just after 4 a.m. No details were immediately available on what the thieves took.
“At this point, we’re surprised they got in,” Spinola said. To thwart burglars she had installed unbreakable glass, alarms, sensors and gates, and hired in-store security.
“I’m hardened to it. It’s a $2,000 robbery, not a $40,000 robbery. You don’t call insurance on this level,” she said. Besides, she adds, “We’ve never had anything recovered.”
She might be jaded, but Spinola and several other Atlanta merchants interviewed are worried criminals are getting more brazen because of a bad economy and the long odds they will be caught or punished. Police say that for a criminal, designer jeans are easier to sell and more profitable than crack.
Atlanta police said they seized $10,000 worth of stolen blue jeans after a tip led to the arrest Friday of 11 people suspected of such robberies.
A brutal economy coupled with unending break-ins threatens to put struggling stores out of their misery. An informal check of several businesses that have been burglarized in the past year found that several have gone under or are teetering.
“It could definitely put you under,” Spinola said. “It can break your spirit.”
The “vicious cycle” can become a “quality of life issue,” said Buckhead Coaltion president Sam Massell. “We all pay for it with higher insurance rates. It hurts employment. It hurts the tax base. The mom and pop stores are valuable to the city.”
Early last month, thieves smashed through the window of the popular Blue Genes boutique near Lenox Square and made off with $100,000 in merchandise. It was the seventh break-in in eight years, Jennifer Arrendale, who owns the store with two sisters, said at the time.
“We lost everything,” she said. “They literally took every jean off every rack.”
A recent visit to the sprawling 7,000-square-foot store, which was featured on the TV show “The Real Housewives of Atlanta,” found it closed and with no merchandise inside. The store had been having financial problems and filed for bankruptcy in December. The owners could not be reached for comment.
Burglaries in Atlanta — both residential and commercial — are up slightly during the first four months of 2009 compared with the same time last year. Burglaries in 2008 increased 13 percent over the previous year.
The problem got so bad last year that Atlanta police formed a task force to nab the so-called “Blue Jean Bandits,” who rampaged through high-end fashion stores and carried off tons of high-priced denim. Criminals employ a wide range of methods, including smashing windows of closed stores, driving trucks through protective gates and even overpowering retail clerks in the middle of the day.
The spree seemed to die down late last year but picked up again this spring.
“It’s back with a vengeance,” said Sgt. Archie Ezell, who heads the police department’s retail theft task force. He said the department made 32 arrests in “smash” cases last year but more criminals seem to be rushing in to take their place. A spokeswoman for the Fulton County District Attorney’s said 35 smash- and-grab cases have been indicted, 15 have resulted in convictions and 16 are still open.
“Kids are being recruited for this; they’re 13, 14 and 15 years old,” he said. “They are told nothing will happen to them if they are caught.”
Some store owners and Atlanta police Sgt. Scott Kreher blame part of the problem on a long-standing shortage of patrol officers. That problem was made worse this year by police furloughs.
“The lack of police presence on the street means more property crime,” Kreher said.
The City Council voted last week to raise city property taxes by 42 percent, which Mayor Shirley Franklin said will help end the furloughs.
Ezell cannot give a “firm number” on the smash-and-grab cases this year. “Last year, it was easier to track; it was high-end clothes,” he said. But clothing boutiques have gotten better about guarding their wares, causing criminals to branch out to camera shops, electronics stores, restaurants with flat-screen TVs and even apartment complexes. “I wish there was a method to their madness. It would be easier to track them.”
Wendy Jackson, owner of Signature 4 Men on Lenox Road and frequent crime victim, said the thieves are savvy enough to surveil the businesses before they strike.
“They scope out the stores when the jeans come in, the high-end jackets, the sunglasses. They want to pinpoint where they’ll go [when they break in],” she said. “It’s out of control, out of control.”
Jackson has engaged in an arms race with Atlanta’s punks: They throw a rock through the window, she installs steel gates, so the next time they drive a truck through the window. She puts in a buzzer to screen customers who enter, so the thieves send a respectable-looking fellow to the door. He gets buzzed in, “then they bum rush the store,” she said, and run out with thousands of dollars of merchandise.
She now keeps less inventory, can no longer obtain insurance, works seven days a week to cut labor costs and would love to get out of her lease and the business. “These guys will ruin your life,” she said.
Last year, Lafayette Brazil’s boutique on Peachtree Road was hit by a robbing crew that pepper sprayed workers. Two men arrested in connection with the robbery at Brazil’s and a similar one at a Decatur boutique, Kaleidoscope, are still being held in Fulton County jail awaiting trial.
After 14 years at the site, Brazil closed. “After a while, you can’t keep getting robbed,” he said.
Kaleidoscope’s owner, Camille Wright, like many other retailers, complained that the penalties for and prosecution of smash-and-grab artists are light. “The only reason [authorities] went after the guys at my store is because there was an assault involved,” she said.
Wright said a detective told her, “They are making more money selling denim than crack. And there’s less risk.”
The blue jeans, jackets and sunglasses are quickly sold on the street at a fraction of the retail price. It’s an operation the public tacitly supports. “People are like, ‘It’s too bad for you, good for me,’ ” Wright said. “People have no guilt” in buying goods they know are stolen.
Adrene Ashford, owner of Adrene Boutique in the Castleberry Hill area south of downtown, has seen a resurgence in crime. Her store was hit twice in April. It couldn’t have come at a worse time.
“The economy is bad, people are holding onto their money,” she said. “If you can’t keep clothes on your shelf, you can’t make it. We’re just trying to survive.”
Ashford recently closed her store in East Atlanta after eight years and four break-ins. She said it was a combination of the break-ins and juggling two stores in a brutal economy.
“It forces you to close,” she said. “You have thousands in investment and then it’s gone. It doesn’t matter on the location. Downtown, Buckhead, Midtown. They go from store to store to store.”
Also, Ashford said a distrust of customers has crept into her life.
“You don’t even know how mad it makes you. They come in the store. They smile in your face, flirt with you and then come back to rob you.”
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