The owners of a popular restaurant have been left ‘devastated’ after thousands of pounds in cash and stock was taken during the night. Marlon and Daynia Amikie, owners of Island Lounge, a Caribbean restaurant on Lower High Street, Wednesbury, shared a video of the break-in.
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NewsTranscript
00:00 So on Wednesday night, well Thursday morning,
00:04 staff came in and when they came in they saw
00:08 our back door wide open. They thought maybe somebody had
00:12 left it open, but upon checking she found out that
00:16 the place looked a bit ramsack, so she asked me to come in quickly. Upon checking
00:20 the CCTV we found that somebody had broken
00:24 in. So when we came in we could see the damage all over
00:28 and all of our alcohol and our till and some of
00:32 other stuff that was gone. So we recently just purchased all of our
00:36 Christmas period goods.
00:40 We had a few big bookings coming up so we were prepared for that to be
00:44 a bit of drinks. The 1.5 litres which are
00:48 hard to get sometimes. So how did they break in, what happened?
00:52 So they primed our back door open using a shovel
00:56 and tried to break in. We've never had any trouble with that door before
01:00 so we thought it was maybe safe because we've had
01:04 break-ins before but they've always come from the front or from another door
01:08 which we had secured. So I think they may have tried
01:12 those and it wasn't able so they tried somewhere else.
01:16 So was it just stock or was it cash as well?
01:20 Funny story is that we had one of our biggest tip from a customer who gave us
01:24 £50 for the service and we also had other tips as well
01:28 so we normally save it for the staff and we share it with them. I think we had
01:32 about £150 in it. So we had flowed about
01:36 £40 in each of the small till and maybe another
01:40 £120 in about the place. So roughly around £250.
01:44 But I suppose it's mainly the stock that you're concerned about?
01:48 Yeah the stock really has hurt us because we've literally
01:52 just purchased all that stock because we were getting ready for our big
01:56 bookings and our Wings Wednesday which is usually really busy on drinks
02:00 and so forth. So we have to buy all that and prepare for the weekend
02:04 It was heart breaking to have to go and buy them all again.
02:08 And have you ever had any trouble like this before? We've had
02:12 trouble maybe two years ago when somebody broke in
02:16 but nothing major. We've never lost
02:20 this much before. So this is the biggest one you've had? This is the biggest one. So they've had
02:24 damages but nothing like this.
02:28 And what would you like to say to the people who've done this? You know what mate
02:32 obviously they need it more than anything else but I'm obviously
02:36 really sorry for them to have to be going through this because I can't believe someone of someone's
02:40 mind would do something like this. I just really feel bad for them
02:44 really. There's not much I can say to them.