A San Jose business owner is speaking out after he says thieves broke into a liquor store and took off with items. Jocelyn Moran reports.
A San Jose business owner is speaking out after he says thieves broke into the family-run liquor store and took off with items.
The incident happened early Monday morning at Hype Liquors, located in the 1200 block of Bascom Avenue in San Jose. The incident was caught on video.
Video of the incident showed the moment a driver uses a car to pull out the doors of the liquor store, the glass breaks and a wooden panel comes off.
The thieves pulled the gate off and at least three people wearing masks rushed in, looking through the merchandise. They took items that are worth about $20,000 to $30,000, putting them in a cart and packing them into the trunk of another car.
“They were taking like $200 bottles. So, they just pick up five bottles, its $1,000. They probably stole 50, 60 bottles last night,” said Gourav Singh, co-owner of Hype Liquors
Singh and his dad own Hype Liquors for the past four years. He added they woke up to notifications from their alarm company on their phone and then, they called police.
“It sucked because we were really watching it all go down live on our phones and we couldn’t do anything,” Singh said.
Singh told NBC Bay Area on Monday that police got there a little after the suspects had already left.
The incident was not the first San Jose business to get broken into in recent weeks.
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The owner of Lion Liquor in East San Jose said they got broken into over the weekend. During that incident, suspects used a car to crash into the doors.
Also, over the weekend, the owner of New Aborn Liquors in San Jose said they got hit. Video from the incident there shows a driver using a car and a chain to pull the doors off.
Singh told NBC Bay Area that his business has been hit multiple times by thieves.
“It’s terrible to be honest. This morning, you wake up and you see all of this happening and you’re like, 'Man I want to get out of this,'” he said.
Singh said they have worked hard to get to where they’re at, with the help of their mom, who died a few months ago.
“She sacrificed a lot to build this business, she would be here,” he said. “She had cancer, she would stand here at the store, at the register, the days we wouldn't be able to be here. It's that emotional connection to the business where you don't want to leave.”
