Thieves ransack Gwinnett County stores, steal thousands

Tom Regan
·2 min read

Police are looking for thieves who broke into three businesses in a Lilburn shopping center late Saturday night.

At each business, they entered the store by breaking through a glass door.

The stores hit on Indian Trail Road included a dry cleaning business, a barber shop, and a small restaurant called Baby Al’s Chicago Dogs and More.

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“It’s completely aggravating because for them it was just a quick couple of minutes, but for me, that’s like a day’s operation to recoup from,” restaurant owner T.L. Lewis said.

Lewis said the thieves broke through a side door and ransacked the office.

Inside they found a cash box hidden under a filing cabinet.

He says they made off with around $4,000 in cash.

In addition to the money loss, he had to close his restaurant for two days to clean the kitchen and remove shards of glass that flew all over from the broken door.

“Every time you clean off something you knock down more glass. So we are going to have to take everything off the shelves and stuff,” Lewis said.

Lewis, a Chicago native, has been making his specialty hotdogs at the Lilburn restaurant for eight years.

Several loyal customers stopped by and were disappointed that they couldn’t get lunch.

“I can always come tomorrow. They really have good sandwiches here too. I always come here.” a customer said.

Lewis says security cameras in the store were not working the night of the break-in.

“I got a notification they were offline,” Lewis said.

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The thieves who hit the dry cleaning service didn’t steal anything.

A manager said few people pay for their dry cleaning in cash.

“It makes no sense. No sense this happened.” store manager Zee Iqbal said.

Lilburn police said on Monday night, thieves attempted to break into post office boxes on Indian Trail Road.

They have not said if they suspect that the burglary attempt was linked to the store break-ins.

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