The Metropolitan Police Department recorded 117 cases of burglaries in Tokyo in March and April that targeted empty stores and eateries that were closed due to the coronavirus pandemic, it has been learned.
Business operators have been outraged by such "cold-blooded" crimes at a time when they are already facing the hardship of a decline in sales.
Hidetoshi Manabe, 38, who runs a Chinese restaurant called "Shinjitsuichiro" in Tokyo's Nishi-Nippori area, said with a sigh, "Restaurants are now on the verge of going bust everywhere."
His restaurant, whose signature dish is mapo tofu, is so popular that it was introduced in the TV drama "Kodoku no Gurume" (Lonely Gourmet), aired by the TV Tokyo network. The interior of the restaurant is adorned with autographs of celebrities who visited there. However, its sales plunged in March as the number of customer fell amid the pandemic. After a national state of emergency was declared on April 7, the restaurant shortened its business hours. It has managed to operate by offering a takeout-only menu since late April. In the meantime, the restaurant fell victim to thefts twice.
In the first case, Manabe found the back door, which he was thought to have closed the previous night, open when he went to work at about 10 a.m. on April 3. Nine kilograms of rice and about 25,000 yen in small change were stolen. It is possible that an intruder may have picked the lock on the door. In the wake of the theft, Manabe changed the lock to a high-security type and placed panels over the outside windows.
On April 29, however, the restaurant suffered a second intrusion after the panels were removed and a window was broken. Forty kilograms of rice and one kilogram of pork were taken away. These were important ingredients that Manabe purchased with money from his customers who are keen to support his business by buying takeout dishes.
"These were cold-blooded criminal acts that trampled on people's feelings. I can never forgive them," said Manabe, who reported the damage to police.
According to the MPD, a series of such burglaries have been reported in entertainment districts and elsewhere in Tokyo since March.
In April, an izakaya bar in Machida drastically cut its business hours, closing at 8 p.m. However, when its 39-year-old owner arrived there to work on the morning of April 27, he found the entrance door broken, and about 700,000 yen in cash, including sales revenue that he had planned to deposit on that day, missing.
"It wasn't good to leave cash at the store, but I never thought it would be stolen," the owner said. "It's huge damage as our sales are falling."
On the morning of April 20, the 37-year-old owner of a ramen shop in Akishima also found a window broken. As cash was not left there, the owner did not suffer financial damage. But he said: "This is the first time we've suffered the burglary since the business was launched 36 years ago. A burglary in which a thief takes advantage of the coronavirus outbreak is like an act of looting. It's unforgivable."
Similar incidents have also occurred outside Tokyo. On May 14, the Kumamoto prefectural police arrested an unemployed man in his 20s on suspicion of stealing cash from an izakaya bar that had suspended its operations. The Osaka prefectural police also arrested an unemployed man in his 60s on May 15 on suspicion of carrying away a safe containing cash from an izakaya bar that had shortened its business hours.
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