Burglarizing vape shops have become big business for thieves here lately. These shops are being targeted by burglars so much that the police are reporting increases in burglaries in stores that sell vaping products.
The police in Wichita, KS recently reported that there’s been at least 17 break ins since January. Troy Schminke, owner of Element Vapes, has had a rough time since his shop was burglarized.
[blockquote cite=”Troy Schminke, Element Vapes” float=”left” align=”left”]It really set us back because we had to replace the glass they broke, and we had to replace the drywall. We don’t make as much money as people think we do, especially being a small business. It will takes months to recover what we lost.[/blockquote]
These burglaries are happening often, in fact, just a few miles down the road from Element Vape, a surveillance camera at another vape shop caught two people breaking that store. The video showed theives kicking the glass out of the cabinets and clearing out the store’s inventory. Unfortunately, these burglaries can cost the store owners thousands of dollars, leaving them with the duty of replacing all the inventory that they’ve built up, as well as replacing damages that were made to the shop in the process.
Here locally, my brother in-law owns a vape shop within a mile or two of the police station, and even it was burglarized. The burglars, which was said to be a couple of kids, kicked in the window panel on the door and quickly made their way to inventory behind the display case. The kids managed to only get a few products until they immediately fled once the alarm went off. The owner said that if it wasn’t for the alarm he had in place, that the burglars would have been able to take much more than what they did.
We’re not quite sure why these vape shops are being targeted. Maybe it’s because most of these shops are small businesses and the burglars think the security of the shop is mild. However, with light of these recent break ins, vape shop owners are smarting up and adding alarms and advanced security cameras throughout their shop.
