REDWOOD CITY, Calif. (KRON) – A small, family-owned Redwood City business lost $50,000 worth of inventory after an early morning break-in. Video from early Thursday morning shows several men walking up to Chain Reaction Bicycles, located at 1680 El Camino Real, and using a crowbar to break open the front door.
“It was just absolutely crazy. We’ve never seen anything like this, and we’ve been in business for 40 years,” said Becky Jacoubowsky.
Becky and Kevin Jacoubowsky are sales managers at the shop that is owned by their father and uncle. They say they grew up in the store and they call the place their home.
They say there have been some minor break-ins over the past four decades, but nothing like this.
“We had six e-bikes and one high-end road bike and that totaled over 50 thousand dollars,” Kevin said.
The men are seen in the security video wheeling out the bikes. They put them in a rented U-haul truck that they parked behind the building. Kevin says thinking back, he believes the suspects may have come in during business hours.
“We’ve had to keep an eye on people a little more often,” he said. “Because the day before we think we may have seen people that were kind of sketchy and scoping us out and we have to keep our head up and look out for anything.”
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They say as a small business, losing $50,000 is significant, but they are fortunate that no one was hurt and their customers still have their back.
“We’ve had tremendous support from our customers,” Becky said. “We have the best customers in the world and they have really rallied around us. It’s been really nice to see people do care.”
The Jacoubowskys just installed cameras two days before the break-in to monitor for theft around the store. They say after this, they’re adding more cameras to hopefully deter criminals.