Boutique owner fed up with repeated break-ins

A business woman who operates from a shop at the Kingstown Vegetable Market says she is fed up of the repeated burglaries at her boutique.

Margaret Samuel, the owner of the #39 shop, ‘Margaret’s Boutique,’ told SEARCHLIGHT that when she opened her store last Tuesday, the floor was strewn with hangers and some of her merchandise was missing.

According to Samuel, this was not the first time she had been the victim of a burglary,{{more}} as the boutique has been broken into before in a similar fashion.

“First, I put burglar bars; when I put in the burglar bars, they used to fish out the thing from the burglar bars; then I put the close board.”

According to Samuel, the burglars mostly steal T-shirts and shirts and the break-ins have been occurring since she first moved to the market in 2000, when it officially opened.

“They have watchman and still it still continues to be the same…. Around Christmas, around Carnival, this is the period,” she remarked.

“The security and the Town Board on a whole need to do something better than this.”

The business woman stated that she expects more protection, because she is paying rent for the area that houses her business.

“The Government on a whole need to look into we, people who operate business in here, because at the end of the day we just keep losing, losing, losing and nobody is saying anything, nobody is giving us compensation.”

Additionally, Samuel revealed that during the past weeks, three stores near to hers were also broken into, along with hers.

“It’s a regular thing,” she added.

The distraught boutique owner also stated that she has been advised by the Town Board to make a report to the police, but has seen no progress.

“CID come here and take a statement and that’s how it end and we keep losing, losing, losing. Business is very slow; we aren’t making money as before and it’s hard when the day come; we just losing and they looking for a rent; it’s not fair!” she said.

However, when contacted, acting warden of the Kingstown Town Board Benson Plaugh-Fellows stated that the police are involved and investigations are ongoing.

“We have brought in a leading security firm to look at the possibility of installing electronically, motion detectors that will cover 100 per cent of the common floor space,” said Plaugh-Fellows.

“I’m very security conscious.”

Having served in two police forces and a security firm, he added that, “No one is more eager than I am to nip this in the bud.”

He says the Town Board has been working in conjunction with the police with the co-operation of the shop operators and “over the last several weekends we have put into place a supplementary security contingency plan.

“Those eight open balconies are a feature of the architecture of the building, but they also are the Achilles heel, in that persons, if they are athletic enough, would be able to scale those walls, getting over to the balconies with the aid of, whether it’s a rope or whether it’s putting a ladder,” he remarked.

Additionally, the acting warden stated that there has been no report over the last weekend, which was a long one.

“So, apparently, it’s working, because usually what happens on a short weekend, market close Saturday and big Monday morning somebody broke in.

“So far, so good; contingency plan seems to have worked,” he said. (AS)