San Francisco Chinatown boba shop burglarized twice in one night
April 4, 2023
A bubble tea shop in San Francisco’s Chinatown was burglarized twice in one night.
Surveillance footage from Thursday shows a woman walking through a broken glass door into Love Tea cafe on Broadway and Grant Avenue shortly after 4 a.m.
The woman can be seen emptying out the shop’s tip jar before walking around the counter to break open the cash register, grabbing the money and leaving the store.
The second burglary takes place just 10 minutes later.
The burglar can be seen stealing electronic tablets used for apps like DoorDash and GrubHub from behind the register before making his way upstairs to swipe a printer, a purse and some cash.
“I tried to open my door early in the morning and I see this big splash of glass broken,” Love Tea owner Nancy Yu Law told KRON4. “Then I went upstairs to check my office and it was also searched and I see the printer is gone.”
Yu Law opened Love Tea during the pandemic in 2021.
Her husband and two sons reportedly help her run two small businesses in Chinatown. The recent break-in will cost her at least $1,600, which she plans to pay out of pocket.
This incident is not the first time the family’s businesses have been burglarized. In 2021, Yu Law lost at least $4,000 after her gift shop, Asia Star Fantasy on nearby Grant Avenue, was burglarized, with suspects breaking the glass door and taking the entire cash register.
“It’s just like a big hit to me. This is a really big hit,” Yu Law told CBS News. “I just don’t know what to say. I just feel like I’ve been unlucky.”
The owner said she didn’t have enough money for an alarm system.
However, the coalition Be Chinatown has reportedly stepped up to help her pay for one.
“Everybody in the community works like seven days a week and we all hard-working people,” Yu Law said. “I hope people come to Chinatown more often to help the small business out.”
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