BALTIMORE — Grainy video captures masked thieves breaking through the glass front door of a Subway sandwich shop in Charles Village over the weekend.
“Big money. Thirty-one dollars and 60 cents,” said Terrance Dickson of the take from that smash-and-grab.
Watch as the owner Terra Cafe owner describes the moment he heard thieves attacking
Dickson owns the Terra Cafe just across the street where the same people cracked his large plate glass window, but could not gain entry,
“I raised up the window. I looked out. I see nothing, and I said, ‘Hey, what’s going on out there!’” recounted Dickson, “Next thing you know, I hear two car doors slam and then I hear the wheels spin off, the car spin off."
Dickson says police found a vehicle tied to the smash-and-grabs the following day, but it turned out to be stolen and the suspects hit five areas throughout the city.
While City Hall can tout the homicide and non-fatal shooting numbers dropping across the board, it is property crimes and vandalism that continue to plague Black Wall Street and Dickson says little has been done to help build up those businesses.
“You have 30 businesses here,” pointed out Dickson, “We should have pole flags. We should be encouraged to stay open at nine, 10:00 at night. We should not be challenged by neighborhood associations to try to limit our visibility.”
A pandemic-era outside space can no longer feature live music, cutting into the business’s bottom line and forcing it to lay off workers and to cut back from opening up seven days a week to just four.
This is the second time in as many years that thieves have targeted the cafe, and this time, its longtime patrons are helping out with donations through a GoFundMe account.
Support for a business, which has seen little since it opened nearly 17 years ago, even if it’s only trickling in at 10 or 20 dollars at a time.
“That’s the one thing that keeps me in Baltimore right now. Okay?” said Dickson, “A lot of my friends have closed up their businesses. Some have relocated to the county and out of the state, and I still believe and I love Baltimore.”
