Businesses impacted by Beryl see spike in burglaries while trying to recover, HPD says

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- The average number of burglary reports taken daily by the Houston Police Department more than quadrupled in the days after Hurricane Beryl.

A spokesman said that the department averaged 10 reports a day of business burglaries in June.

From the Monday that Beryl made landfall until the following Saturday, the department took 259 reports, an average of 43 daily.

The day after the storm, Chanon Yong Sanguanchai said the staff at Sala Thai Eatery showed up to work and found that it burglarized at about 6 a.m.

Sala opened two months ago in the 200 block of Westheimer in Montrose.

Sanguanchai said the surrounding businesses lost power in the storm, but the restaurant did not, so their surveillance cameras captured what happened.

One man used a device to shatter the glass in the entry door and entered alongside another man.

"They took a trashcan just right here beside the bar, and they put all the alcohol in the trashcan and took the trashcan out," Sanguanchai said.

He said they also stole a safe with minimal money inside.

Bayou City Seafood fell victim to a burglary less than five miles away on Friday morning.

Owner Dale Peters said he prepared the restaurant for the storm by refrigerating all the food, taking care of the staff, and removing expensive IT equipment.

"Your fear is always that people will prey on any situation where power is out," Peters said.

The restaurant that had been open for more than three decades lost power on Monday during the storm.

Early Friday morning, Peters said he got a call that the restaurant had been broken into. He showed up to the location on Richmond near the West Loop and found that three of their doors had been damaged during the crime, totaling roughly $20,000 in damage.

"They filled up two garbage cans full of liquor and had that at the end of the center, and I guess the cops spoiled that part of it," Peters said.

According to Peters, an officer driving by noticed a car with its lights on parked outside the dark business around 3 a.m. and got the license plate. He believes that caused the suspects to leave the trash can filled with liquor behind.

Subsequently, authorities say arrests were made.

"My thing would be accountability," Peters said. "I'm accountable to my restaurant and my staff. I would like to see that, as a city, we start holding these criminals accountable for what they do. If there's no accountability, why would you stop doing it?"

Because the power was out at Peters' restaurant, his cameras could not capture what was happening inside.

Despite the similarities in the circumstances at Sala and Bayou City Seafood, authorities have not said the two are connected.

The law allows the district attorney's office to enhance punishments for certain crimes in the aftermath of a disaster if they are somehow connected to the disaster.

"I think it's a time where we should come together and help each other out, but instead, they just took advantage of other people and kind of benefitted themselves, so I think it's really good policy to have at the moment," Sanguanchai said.

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