Detroit – it is Detroit gems, but thieves continue to target the Eastern Market and business owners are fed up with more than a dozen burglaries in the past six months.
Break-in after break-in, business owners are still trying to recover and attract customers, deeply concerned about harming their tight-knit communities.
The latest burglar smashes a window and climbs through the door of Two 18, a sneaker and streetwear store oriental market. Thieves stole more than $5,000 in merchandise.
“I poured my blood, sweat and tears into this man, so anyone who takes a pen from here will feel it,” owner Roland Coit said.
The video showing the break-in is from November 2022, but the door remains boarded up because Coit said the thieves haven’t stopped targeting the Eastern Market.
After Two 18, this is next door to Thomas Magee. Beyond Juice and Eatery across the street have been hit three times, while Stache down the road had two burglaries in the last week alone. Owners there say they were forced to sell.
“My biggest concern is the community,” Coit said. “Not just me, not just my business.”
Coit said police have been helping, but so far they haven’t been able to get enough businesses ashore to install green light cameras. Still, he worries about the tight-knit business community in the market.
“Every aspect of it, from the shed to the restaurant to the restaurant to the bar to the retail, it’s something new here and it’s not to be taken lightly,” Coit said.
Coit said they tried to install those green light cameras from the Detroit Police Department, but the problem was that they were expensive and they needed to buy them from multiple businesses. They are working on fixing this but for now they are stuck with boarded up windows and hopefully this won’t happen again.
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