The ‘well -filled’ cash registers of ice cream parlor and cafeteria ‘t Smulhoekske in Werkendam were stolen on Monday night at two brutal burglaries. The burglar destroyed the cash registers, the windows and several tables at the catering establishments. For Kevin Rijken, the 26-year-old owner of the ice cream parlor, it feels like his hard work has been for nothing, because his business is only open for a year. “It’s my child and someone’s just like that.”
Kevin’s mother woke up around two o’clock on Monday night because of the ice cream parlor’s alarm. “There is a small delay on the camera images she then looked at, so the burglar was already gone when she looked at the images,” says Kevin.
“That’s why she thought it was a false alarm and went to sleep again. When I looked at the images in the morning, I immediately saw that the tables were different. My heartbeat was in my throat and I drove tears to the business in my eyes to see what had happened.”
“Glass splinters on the street and in the business.”
Kevin found a considerable havoc there. “The window has been smashed with a stone that caused the glass splinters on the street and in the store. The frames are broken. The burglar has crawled through the window through a table, so that there is some damage to the tables,” says the owner in Betert.
“He then received the cash salad with coarse violence from the cash register. He tried to open it by forcing the drawer with a screwdriver. But when the alarm went off, he fled the tiny hole in the window with the complete drawer.”
Kevin would rather not share how much money was in the cash register. “But the drawer was well filled. After a long winter period it is finally sunny again so it is very sour that a burglar strikes,” he says.
“Completed cafeteria complete cash register.”
Not only at the ice cream parlor was broken into Monday night. “At cafeteria ‘t Smulhoekske a little further away, the police have found the same shoe spores there. At the cafeteria the complete cabling cabling and already included,” says Kevin.
The young entrepreneur is very disappointed, because his business has only been open for a year. “It is bizarre and incomprehensible. We have just played for a year and now this is happening. The ice cream parlor is my child and someone is just on that.”
The ice cream parlor was closed all day on Tuesday. “We had to clean up the glass, make a declaration, restore the counter and the window has now been temporarily made with a wooden board,” he says.
The case will open again on Wednesday, but the sour aftertaste of the burglary is no less. “We have received many tips, because we have shared the images on our social media. The police already have the idea who the perpetrator is so we hope he will be caught soon.”
