(Newsweek) After his Chicago car dealership was robbed on Saturday, the owner of the business called on city leaders to do more to address crime.
During the incident on Saturday, two men walked into the dealership, Gold Coast Exotic Motor Cars, with one standing guard at the door, and the other using a hammer to break open display cases, ABC 7 reported. Employees said that the men made off with seven luxury watches.
The value of the stolen merchandise was $2 million, and the robbery occurred while there were families in the store, according to CBS Chicago.
“A city that I love and everybody loves to come to is going to be a desert if they don’t stop this. We’re going to have people moving out of this city—they’re moving out now—that want to just be safe,” the store’s owner, Joe Perillo, told the news station.
“They’re walking into my business, crashing the windows,” Perillo said. “And one guy stands with a gun. And we have to have this happen. Enough is enough.”
Perillo said he wants Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot and the state’s attorney’s office to take action.
“It’s only a fool who keeps doing things the same way and expects different results. If the Mayor and Kim Foxx don’t do anything to get control of this, it’s not going to get better. It’s going to get worse,” he told CBS Chicago.
Foxx is the Cook County state’s attorney.
….
Chicago and other cities around the country have been impacted by a recent spate of smash-and-grab robberies. Chicago ranked third on a list released by the National Retail Federation of cities most impacted by organized retail crime.Â
