Frustration is mounting for a local business owner after his downtown business was broken into Tuesday morning around 7:20 a.m.
The owner of Phog Lounge, Tom Lucier says since the end of last year this is the fourth break in at his establishment located on the corner of University Avenue West and Victoria Avenue.
Surveillance video shows a man entering through a smashed window on the west side of the building.
Lucier thinks the suspect is not from the area.
"They come in. They look for the cash register at the far end of the bar and then on the way out he realizes where it is. Kinda gives a frustrated fist pump with his weird sledgehammer that he brought with him and then leaves because the alarm is going off. So I think this is someone who is not from here. Definitely is someone who has never been to the bar and didn't take anything."
He says there's zero sense of security downtown and repairs are too costly.
"Why would I ever replace these windows. What is the point? There's no reassurance. It just makes my insurance costs go up if I claim it. It's absurd. It's just something that I have to do a patch job now until I feel secure enough to actually invest in my space. It's crazy."
He says he's heard from neighbouring businesses that they too have experienced break-ins in as many months as well.
"I don't know why Univeristy and Victoria is like the wild west. You can get away with anything on that corner. You can just do whatever you want in that neighbourhood because there's no one there policing it. I mean the police can't just stake out the corner in perpetuity. That's not the solution either. But for some reason anything goes."
Lucier says the windows are boarded up for the time being and says he'll likely ask a local artist to do some artwork on them.
-With files AM800's Rob Hindi