A Huntsville business owner is heartbroken after an overnight break-and-enter.
Ram, who owns the Pizza Nova franchise with his wife Maha, arrived at the restaurant Friday morning to find that someone had smashed in a window and stolen the cash register.
He says he called the police immediately, who he says were very helpful, arriving within minutes to investigate the damage. Ram estimates somewhere between $150 and $200 was in the till, as it had already been stocked for the next day.
“The $150 is just the till number,” says Ram. “The broken glass, the business stopping for hours, the panic I got, is not worth $150.”
All in, he estimates the total financial damage at a few thousand dollars. “For me, this is a big, big damage,” says Ram, noting that it is a big out-of-pocket expense, but not big enough to justify the insurance deductible.
“If they would have asked me, I would have given them $300. For food or anything, other than any illegal thing,” says Ram. “Whatever human help they would have wanted, I would have provided them. What they did to me last night caused more damage than the $150.”
Ram says he hopes the police can catch the culprits quickly, as he knows his was not the only business broken into that night. He speculates that drugs were involved in some capacity, adding that he wishes the government would do more to tackle the problem.
“Huntsville itself is not the same Huntsville as 10 years before. I still remember there were days I left my car door open, my garage door open. Nothing,” says Ram. “But now it’s slowly become like one of those GTA areas where it’s prone to more robberies, stealing, theft. I’m getting a little afraid.”
Anyone with information on the incident is asked to reach out to the Huntsville OPP at 705-789-5551, or report anonymously through Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 or ontariocrimestoppers.ca.