Thieves broke into a family-owned business in New Rochelle and walked out with a substantial haul after cutting open a safe kept in the office. The break-in has left the owner shaken and out more than 30,000 dollars, and it is now one of two burglaries of Westchester businesses that police are working to solve.
According to the owner, the two thieves who got inside did not stumble onto the safe by luck. They came prepared, carrying the tools they needed to cut the safe open and pull out the cash inside. When they were done, the owner said, the loss came to north of 30,000 dollars taken in a single break-in.
The timing of the theft made the blow especially painful. The owner said losing that much money is particularly hard at this point in the year, which is the slow season for the business. Even with far less coming in, the operation still has to cover payroll for its workers over the next several weeks.
The burglary also landed hard because of the kind of place New Rochelle is. Neighbors described the area as a close-knit community, and the news that a local business had been targeted and cleaned out struck a nerve among people who know the owner and frequent the businesses along the street.
The owner said the business already takes a lot of security measures, and is now trying to work out how the thieves managed to get in anyway. The focus has turned to finding where the gaps were and figuring out what else can be done to make sure the same thing does not happen again at the location.
The case does not appear to be an isolated one. Just last week, another family-owned business in Westchester, La Hacienda Meat and Grocery Market in Yonkers, was also burglarized. Police are now investigating both break-ins as they try to determine who was behind the thefts targeting the county's small businesses.