Dairy owners sick of ‘living in fear’
ASHA PATEL was quietly going about her work at the Coast Rd Dairy when she was suddenly confronted by a gun-wielding masked man.
The gunman strode into the Wainuiomata dairy and pointed the pistol at Patel as she took out a bag of rubbish from the small family shop on Tuesday afternoon.
Confronted by the armed robber, she backed into the store, pleading with the man ‘‘not to shoot’’.
Quick thinking allowed her to slip through a door to the back of the shop. She locked the door behind her and hit the alarm.
The gunman, left alone in the shop, went behind the counter and tried opening the cash register. When he failed to get his hands on any cash, he snatched several packets of cigarettes and ran from the scene.
Patel’s husband, Minesh, back behind the counter yesterday and serving customers with a smile, said his wife was still in shock a day after the brazen daylight robbery.
‘‘I’m not sure when she will come back to work,’’ he said. ‘‘You think in a quiet community like this it would be safe to go to work and do your job.’’
The robbery at the dairy is the latest in a spate of aggravated robberies in the Lower Hutt community and ‘‘hard working’’ dairy owners had had a gutsful of ‘‘working in fear’’, he said.
Last week, shortly before 2pm, armed teenagers threatened a staff member at Jay Store dairy with what police have described as a black-coloured rifle or possibly a shotgun.
A lone woman stood behind the counter while one of the men aimed a gun at her.
The other young man moved closer and demanded cigarettes.
Patel said he bought his dairy as a family business and it appeared it had come to the point where he now had to worry about leaving his wife on her own in the shop.
‘‘They come in broad daylight. This has happened at the other dairies in the area where single ladies have been working and robbed.’’
Up the road at the Top Hat Dairy, owner Nisha Khan also knows the feeling of staring down the barrel of a gun, having been robbed at gunpoint in February.
The gun turned out to be fake but Khan said there was no time to make that distinction when one’s life appeared to be in danger.
She has been robbed twice more since then. The latest robbery was last week when someone charged into the shop, leapt the counter and filled a bag full of cigarettes.
‘‘It’s become a habit for these people. I don’t want to work and live in fear in my own place of business. I stand proud and work hard,’’ she said.
Both Patel and Khan said they worked long hours, seven days a week, and while the thieves did not make off with thousands of dollars of cash or goods the consequences were harsh for business owners.
‘‘It takes a long time to make back a few hundred dollars of cigarettes,’’ Khan said.
There was also the emotional toll on the victims, they said.
Both dairy owners believed more patrols in the area and tougher penalties for those caught would help deter future robberies.
Police are still searching for the gunman involved in Tuesday’s robbery and are appealing for any information from the public.
The man was described as olive skinned, of short to average height, wearing a blue coloured hoodie and a bandanna on his face. He carried a backpack.
‘I don’t want to work and live in fear in my own place of business.’ Nisha Khan