Seven break-ins over three weeks ‘hurt our hearts’
Thieves have used rocks to smash their way into the same rural Waikato shops seven times in three weeks.
They take whatever they can find – anything from energy drinks to hundreds of dollars in cash – from The Sweet Painted Lady Cafe and The Scoop Waharoa, near Matamata. The shops are left in disarray, and the woman behind the businesses is feeling concerned for the future.
‘‘It’s been so disheartening . . . it’s hurt our hearts,’’ Pat Jacques, 77, told Stuff.
Both businesses are owned by the Jacques family who, since the cafe’s establishment in 2012 and the recent unveiling of the Italian gelato parlour in 2020, have made a positive name in the low-socioeconomic settlement along State Highway 27.
Some people travel to Waharoa just for the cafe´ , in some cases over 100 customers walk through the door each day. People have told Jacques the cafe is the best thing Waharoa has seen for many years.
Yet, in the space of three weeks, the parlour was broken into four times and the cafe´ was targeted three times.
On two of those occasions, both shops were hit on the same night.
Other Waharoa businesses have also had windows smashed and thefts, Jacques said.
It’s the $4000 repair bill that left Jacques feeling defeated.
‘‘We get the window fixed the next day, at a cost of $600, and a couple of days later it’s smashed again,’’ she said.
‘‘We can’t sustain the expense for that long.’’
At this stage, closing isn’t an option, but she said they are factoring in expenses.
The shops installed cameras inside the store, and captured offenders on video the same night.
‘‘The day we put the cameras in was the same night we had another break-in.
‘‘We know what they’re doing once they get in here, but the community needs to know what is going on outside.’’
She’s hoping the Matamata-Piako District Council can do something about the problem.
‘‘The council needs to make the community feel safe and that it’s being monitored. Every business in this community has invested thousands of dollars into security.
‘‘There are just one or two people in the community of hundreds that think they have the right to take from people.
‘‘In some ways, Waharoa has developed this bad reputation of crime, but the people who live in Waharoa are lovely, beautiful people and their community is being let down by these few little scumbags that roam the streets at night,’’ Jacques said.
Police are talking to one person and are still looking for another in relation to earlier break-ins, she said.
The Scoop opened in the winter of 2020, with Jacques’ son, Neville, and his daughter Nadine turning a run-down gift shop into a homemade gelato store, with machines imported from Italy.
The cafe was well established by then. It opened in 2012 and Jacques took over management eight years ago. She’s been working 10-hour days, six to seven days a week ever since.
It now employs 15 staff, five of them hailing from Waharoa.
‘‘In some ways, Waharoa has developed this bad reputation of crime, but the people who live in Waharoa are lovely, beautiful people . . .
Pat Jacques