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SALT LAKE CITY — Two eastside business owners are hoping someone can help identify those responsible for early morning break-ins Thursday at their shops.
At Liberty Heights Fresh, 1290 S. 1100 East, owner Steven Rosenberg said multiple surveillance cameras at his market captured the burglary there.
"This morning at 5:23 a.m. two white males in a black, late-model Jeep Cherokee pulled up right where you're standing," Rosenberg told KSL-TV as he stood in his parking lot Thursday evening.
"The passenger got out from the passenger side in the shotgun seat, pulled up a face mask, had a black beanie and a black jacket and glasses and a little scruff, and he walked to the front door. He hit it with something. It shattered. He pushed the glass out of the way. He went in and he took a cash drawer."
The cameras show the suspect exiting with the entire cash drawer before looking over his shoulder and closing the door. The SUV then drove away onto 1300 South.
"They got nothing," Rosenberg said. "They ruined our day."
If only it was the only day ruined before sunrise. A couple of miles away, owner Alek Juliano said Coffee Noir, 1035 E. 200 South, also experienced a burglary.
"Yeah, we had someone smash the front door and walk in and steal our cash till," Juliano said. "Just over $100 in cash — that's pretty much all they took."
The coffee shop did not have surveillance footage of that burglary, but both break-ins unfolded similarly with cash drawers targeted and glass front doors as the entry points.
While Salt Lake City police as of late Thursday had not yet said anything about any possible connection between the two burglaries, the owners acknowledged the damage was the same.
"Yeah, overall, it's a violating experience," Juliano said.
Rosenberg expressed a similar sentiment.
"They can pay me not only for replacing the glass," Rosenberg said, "but they can pay me for the anguish they've caused."
Rosenberg urged anyone with information to contact the Salt Lake City Police Department at 801-799-3000.
He hoped his surveillance footage might hold the clues to solve potentially multiple crimes.
"It's extremely frustrating, you know," Rosenberg said. "It just seems like some pranksters who think it's funny, but it's not."
