A restaurant manager says crime near the southern border has affected his ability to stay open after businesses suffered a string of burglaries in the weeks before Christmas.
Ahipoki managing partner Jason Jantzen joined “Fox & Friends First” on Wednesday to discuss how the thefts have affected the company’s bottom line and its employees.
“We’re not opening on time,” Jantzen told host Todd Piro. “We’re not serving our customers … It happens a lot, people just stop coming … sometimes we’re lucky to open at all, so the revenue is lost. Those employees don’t get to work. They don’t. earn money”.
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“So it’s not just a hit-and-run…they take the cash and it goes on without consequence,” he continued. “There’s a lot of people involved and it really affects the flow of business.”
Jantzen is based in both California and Arizona, and both have been hit by a string of robberies in recent weeks.
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An incident at the Temple City location was caught on camera. The footage shows the robber smashing through a table and eventually fleeing with cash and a laptop.
Jantzen said the cause is unknown, but he believes the border crisis ultimately spurred an increase in crime due to the proximity of restaurants.
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“We have a huge fentanyl crisis because Arizona and California are border states,” Jantzen said. “We see hundreds of thousands of pills crossing the border every day without any consequences. Nobody is doing anything about it.”
“Fentanyl is a huge problem in Arizona,” he continued. “It’s a big problem in California. It’s killing kids. It’s creating these kinds of addictions. And of course they have to feed that addiction, so they’re committing these low-level crimes to do it.”
Jantzen also highlighted the state’s lax policy on crime, saying the lax stance has had a negative impact on small businesses and their employees, especially at this time of year.
“A lot of counties, municipalities have their own laws where criminals can commit crimes,” Jantzen said. “If it doesn’t meet a certain threshold, they don’t even realize they’re not allowed to be arrested. So…who knows what’s going to happen?”
“It’s definitely going to hurt small businesses,” he continued. “It takes a toll on employees, especially at this time of year.”
The perpetrators have yet to be caught, but Jantzen said he hopes justice will be served.
“Hopefully we’ll get those people … it’s the holiday season … but we also know there’s a lot of jobs out there,” Jantzen said. “I know…money is hard, but man, don’t steal from us. Come on, come and work for us.”