Show window broken days before Christmas

Although the items stolen from Grand Bazaar early Wednesday morning were not significant in value, one of the store’s directors attributes the break-in to poor beat patrol by police officers.

Speaking to SEARCHLIGHT on Wednesday, Sanjay Jiandani, one the directors of RC Enterprises, which includes Voyager and Grand Bazaar, said that apart from the broken display glass, items taken did not exceed EC$200 in value.{{more}}

However, he said persons in the Grenville Street area are concerned that there were no police patrolling the area, especially during the busy Christmas season.

“I spoke to couple other people during the course of the morning and one of the concerns that we have is we don’t see the level of officers usually on the beat, especially in a season like now, being Christmas and Nine Mornings,” said the store’s director.

“To see that there was nobody, no police were on the streets at all. So those kind of things we believe encourage people to do bad things, when they know the streets are clear.”

Jiandani said Wayne Williams, owner of Music Centre, which is adjacent to Grand Bazaar, informed him of the break-in around 1 o’clock on Wednesday morning.

He believes that the burglar’s intention was to make a quick dollar, “maybe to steal something to sell to satisfy whatever urges,” he said.

During the interview, Jiandani placed more emphasis on the broken window than the stolen pots and baking pans.

“The losses in terms of what we’re missing is minute compared to the prospect of replacing the window.”

“The damage is the window,” he told SEARCHLIGHT, “that’s thousands of dollars worth of window, because that’s specially ordered out of Trinidad; nobody in St Vincent supplies that size window.”

The window has been temporarily replaced by a large piece of plywood, which Jiandani said took two hours to secure.

The display glass has been smashed in the past; however, it is suspected that this most recent act was committed by a homeless person, or drug addict.

The police are currently investigating the matter. (AS)