A midtown Anchorage business owner said crime in his neighborhood is on the rise.
Richard Hale has owned Hale’s Technical Service at 3207 Denali Street for 19 years.
Hale said he’s seen an increase in crime — especially in the past month. His security cameras have captured video of at least three break-ins.
“They’ve cut the barbed wire and come over the fence,” Hale explained.
He said the thieves will check the locks on parked cars, looking for anything to steal. Neighboring businesses have been hit too, but owners declined to go on camera.
“From my understanding, they stole computers, company checks,” Hale said about one incident.
He said each burglary not only costs him money to replace the stolen items but also time searching through surveillance footage to give to police.
“You feel violated, you truly do. What can be done? What do you do?” Hale asked.
Across the street at Tiny Ptarmigan, owner Lauren Blanchett said the theft problem was “apparent almost immediately” when she opened the store in 2014.
Blanchett also owns Portfolio and Classic Woman. She said over the past year she’s seen an uptick in low-level shoplifting.
She’s installed a security system at Tiny Ptarmigan to combat the problem. “It’s stressful and we’re all on edge,” Blanchett said.
Anchorage police said Midtown has the highest number of calls of any place in the city, specifically the area around the A Street Wal-Mart.
Officer Natasha Welch, with APD’s Community Action Policing Team, said officers get more than 1,000 calls to respond to that part of town—which can be anything from a suspicious or drunk person at a bus stop to shoplifters inside a store.
Another midtown grocery store owner declined to go on camera and didn’t want his store identified, but said not only has the number of shoplifters gone up, but the amount they’re stealing has increased by hundreds of dollars.
Hale said he thinks thousands of dollars in equipment and checks have been taken from his neighbors. He’s upgrading his security equipment, but said that doesn’t mean much if police can’t arrest the criminals.
“They don’t want to see these shop owners taking their law into their own hands but nothing is happening,” Hale said. “But I don’t want to do that. All I want to do is come to work, go home, raise my son. That’s all I want to do.”
KTVA 11’s Heather Hintze can be reached via email or on Facebook and Twitter.
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