BALTIMORE — The owner of La Barrita in Butchers Hill was sleeping while a group of seven teenagers smashed his glass door with what appears to be bolt cutters, vandalized the inside of his restaurant, and made off with some cash.
"The damage inside, I don't understand it because it's like you don't need to do any all the damage that they did just they did it because they can," Sebastian Cardona said.
Between 3:00 and 4:00 a.m. Thursday morning, La Barrita, Bmore Licks, and Taqueria El Sabor del Parque were all hit.
Surveillance footage captured what appears to be the same group breaking the glass door at Taqueria on Eastern Avenue.
Hear from business owners in Patterson Park as multiple break-ins are under investigation
Baltimore Police confirm they're looking into all three break-ins. There was a patrol car sitting on La Barrita's block of Chester Street; owner Sebastian Cardona wants to see a more consistent police presence in the neighborhood.
"But these things happen more and more and, and they walk away with it because there is nobody to stop them," Cardona told WMAR-2 News.
"Frankly, it's violating and it's just stupid that they're allowed to run around at 3 in the morning when we're all asleep and do this nonsense,"
Arch McKown said.
McKown is the safety committee chairperson for the Patterson Park Neighborhood Association, and the vice president of the Southeastern District Police Community Relations Council. If there's an incident in this neighborhood, he knows about it. And he's growing tired of seeing the same individuals committing the same crimes.
"Time and time again we see instances of where the system, it fails these kids, it fails our community, it fails these business owners like they have to spend out of pocket now thousands of dollars," he said.
A petition started by people who live in this neighborhood back in September is making the rounds again. More than 4,000 people have signed, calling for the removal of Secretary Vincent Schiraldi, the head of Maryland's Department of Juvenile Services.
"Most of us, we're not sitting here saying like, 'lock up all the kids and put them in jail,'" McKown said. "But we're saying, 'hey can we tighten things up somehow? Can we make some changes?'"
In the meantime, Cardona says some broken glass isn't enough for him to give up on serving his community.
"But we're going to fix it and we're not going to close. We will be here," he told WMAR-2 News.