Retail theft and burglaries across San Francisco has been blamed for running restaurants and retailers out of town and for a downturn in tourism. It’s also led to calls for more police protection.
Roozbeh Falahati, the owner of Hamburger Haven in San Francisco’s Richmond District, said he sees a trend in local burglaries. He said in his neighborhood, they seem to happen between 2 a.m. to 5 a.m. and he added that it’s gotten really bad lately.
“Since we reopened in July of 2022, we have been broken into four times. Compared to my dad’s tenure of 35-plus years, he was broken into just once,” Falahati said.
Falahati said that the latest burglary got a lot more personal as it wasn’t money that was taken because workers never leave cash in the registers. This time, they took the register itself, a family business heirloom, that's more than 100 years old and has been at Hamburger Haven since they opened in 1968.
“It just hurts to have something sentimental taken. It’s one thing when money is taken or windows are shattered,” he said.
Jim Skelton, who is visiting San Francisco from Chicago, told NBC Bay Area Monday that he visits often and always eat at Hamburger Haven. He added that he is not shocked to hear about what happened.
“I’m glad it didn’t do that much business and put them out of business and life goes on,” Skelton said.
For this family-owned business, it's a very personal crime and they want the register back. Hamburger Haven is not the only business seeing losses. Another restaurant down the street was hit the same night, along with a dry cleaner two blocks away.
“It makes us feel like they just aren’t listening,” Falahati said.
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Business owners told NBC Bay Area on Monday that they have asked San Francisco for patrols in the overnight hours in the city’s Richmond and Sunset districts.
“We always get the same boilerplate response, so there isn’t any new creative responses that are coming out, which is really what we need,” Falahati said.
NBC Bay Area reached out to San Francisco police for comment on Monday but they did not respond.
