Article content continued

On Sept. 7, the male owner confronted the suspect outside the store when a group the person was with began to approach and yell at the owner, according to police. The family said the owner was beaten up by the group although a police spokesperson said that there were no assaults or injuries reported. The spokesperson said that officers were dispatched 15 minutes after the call was received.

The following evening, police said a suspect armed with a pipe allegedly robbed the convenience store, stealing a glass bong from the store and threatening the owner’s son who was working that night.

“When he stole the bong, I was scared because he tried to pull out something and it was a really long pipe,” said the owner’s son, who says that there have been five robberies in total in August and September by the same thief. “He probably would have beaten me up to if I hadn’t given it to him.”

According to the police spokesperson, officers attended but were told the business was closed, and the complainant asked to meet with officers the next evening. Police said officers are still awaiting video surveillance from the business, although the store’s owners said they had turned it over to the police.

A few days later, the owners said the suspect returned and sprayed one of them with a fire extinguisher. “We’ve been cleaning up the place for three days because of it,” said the owner’s son.

The owners said they have owned the store since January 2015 and while they have had incidents in the past – including a pair of seemingly unrelated break-ins last September which prompted them to sleep in the store overnight to stop the robberies – they have had nothing like these recent incidents.

“We really need the police’s help because this is the only income that we have,” said the owner’s son. “If they don’t help us, we can’t continue.”

gdawkins@postmedia.com

Twitter: @SunGlenDawkins