Rantz: Seattle small business hit four times in a few hours, owner says city doesn’t care

The Seattle crime crisis claims another victim as Turntables and Trails in Lake City becomes the latest small business to be targeted. Brazen thieves struck four times within hours, leaving the owner feeling abandoned by a city that, according to him, “just doesn’t care about small businesses.”

“Probably due to a whole series of ‘perfect storm’ moments, you know, I guess it kind of worked out for (the thieves),” Spencer Carson told “The Jason Rantz Show” on KTTH.

Carson initially got an alarm of a potential break-in at 11 p.m. last Friday. But when a nearby employee checked the premises, there was nothing suspicious. A second alarm went off around midnight, but again, everything looked fine, according to surveillance cameras Carson was reviewing remotely.

Finally, the alarm went off a third time around 1 a.m., and again, everything looked fine from inside the business.

After the third seemingly false alarm, Carson shut off the alarm system because he was scheduled for an early flight. That turned out to be a mistake.

“So, I shut off the alarm, and I think about 30 minutes later, they came back and realized the alarm wasn’t on anymore and proceeded to raid the place,” Carson explained.

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What did the thieves steal from this Seattle small business?

It appeared the thieves were attempting to break into the Seattle small business multiple times without triggering the alarm, but when they realized it was no longer on, they made a more bold move to get in.

“Clearly, they had a while to pry the door open,” Carson said. “I mean, it was bolted pretty good with extra brackets over where the actual deadbolt is, and they still pried it open.”

Video surveillance showed what appeared to be two people rummaging through the store stealing clothing. But they left some of the higher valued items for video games and card games.

“They’re not very traceable. They’re easy to sell. They’re easy to throw in a backpack. They’re easy to clear out quickly,” Carson said. “If you want to steal my $3,000 turntable, a pawn shop probably won’t buy it or give you anything for it. You put it on Craigslist, I’m going to see it. My customers are going to see it. So they knew what they were doing, right?”

The damage and stolen products, which also included the iPad they used for credit card transactions and some small PA equipment, will set Carson back approximately $6,000, he said.

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Is the nearby homeless encampment to blame?

A homeless encampment has been growing within a stone’s throw of Turntables and Trails. Upwards of 40 or 50 homeless people venture in and out of the encampment throughout the day, and there’s open-air drug use for all to see.

Neighbors have complained that it’s bringing bad elements to the neighborhood. Carson said he doesn’t think the homeless are directly responsible for the break-in, but knows there are nefarious characters who try to take advantage of struggling homeless. It’s those people who could be responsible, though police have no suspects.

Carson believes small businesses like his wouldn’t be targeted as often if the city had a plan to specifically help them.

“It feels like Seattle is a city that just doesn’t care about small businesses,” Carson admitted. “We seem to spend so much time and energy … our council and government pandering to Amazon and Microsoft and Boeing and these giant corporations. It’s important to keep those businesses here and those jobs here, but at the same time, if you don’t help small businesses grow and be successful, they will never survive, and then you lose the job creation of small businesses and the tax revenue of small businesses and, frankly, the community aspect of small businesses.”

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Seattle small business owner just wants a little help

Carson said he’s not asking for much, but the City of Seattle doesn’t seem to care enough to help small business owners.

One simple request? He’d like to be able to call the police and have them come within a reasonable amount of time. But the Seattle Police Department (SPD) is working under a staff emergency and routinely doesn’t have enough officers to keep the city safe.

“I will 100% assert that over the years, there were times I called the police, and just the response was nonexistent. Nobody ever showed up,” he complained. “And now I call, they actually show up, but it’s still slow. It’s just a limit we have.”

The Seattle business owner would also like to see better outreach to the homeless.

“Generally, homeless encampments create a mess that I’ve got to go out and clean up every morning. And you know, people don’t like stepping over trash to come into my business, so help with stuff like that,” he said.

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