Burglaries a Blow to Already Slow Business in Plaza

Business has been slow in Pennichuck Square, on a decline for about four or five years, say Carmella and George Norris, owners of Carm's Gift Shoppe.

That makes what happened in their plaza Saturday night or early Sunday morning an even tougher pill to swallow.

Carm arrived at her shop, tucked in the right corner of the horseshoe-shaped plaza at 8:30 Sunday morning and immediately she knew something was amiss. A trash can that sits in a bracket mounted on a wall to the right of her shop entrance was pushed up against the door.

When she moved the trashcan away, she found the door was no longer locked and scrapes and damage to the door frame indicated it had been pried open. Inside, she found her cash register had also been pried open, though she doesn't keep cash in the store overnight.

A jewelry case full of necklaces had also been broken into. The neck forms they sit on were strewn about the floor and all the necklaces were gone. The power to the front of her store, had also been switched off from the back room.

It's those last two details, that lead the Norrises to believe they'd been cased at some point before the burglary.

"They've probably been into our store before and we were probably very nice to them," George Norris said with a pleasant smile, but shaking his head.

In 23 years they've operated Carm's Gift Shoppe in Pennichuck Square plaza, they had never been burglarized.

Carm Norris said A&E Diamonds was broken into overnight a several years back, but they'd never seen anything like what they came upon Sunday morning.

Nearly every business in the plaza had scrape marks and door frame damage consistent with attempts at forced entry. The burglar or burglars, however, only got into three businesses. Also hit were Layla's Consignments, a new shop that open next door to Carm's in July and El Tapatio, a Mexican restaurant that has been in the plaza for a few years and earlier this year completed an expansion joining together two of the retail spaces just to the left of the old Sportshoe Center.

The burglar or burglars took nothing at El Tapatio, though they rifled through the office and a bag that had been left there by an employee. His stuff was all over the bar, Ysidra Aguirre, the restaurant's owner said.

Aguirre said the burglar tried to pry open the door that goes into the bar area but was unsuccessful. They got in through the restaurant's main entrance. Like the Norrises, Aguirre said she keeps no cash in the restaurant overnight.

Between Layla's and Carm's the burglars got away with nearly $10,000 in merchandise police say. For businesses that aren't particularly booming, that's a blow.

Lt. Denise Roy said the police department was able to obtain some good surveillance footage during their investigation, from one of the businesses in the plaza. She said they are working to sharpen up the image and hope the public will be able to help them identify the person in the footage.

Additionally, Roy said this seems like it was an isolated incident, but part of the investigation includes reaching out to other local police departments to compare notes.

"Burglaries are an ongoing problem, both in the daytime and nighttime," Roy said. But she said it's been pretty standard. "I don't see it as an increase in what we've been seeing."

The holiday season is always a busy time for thefts, robberies and break-ins.

While detectives continue to investigate this incident, which Roy said is at the forefront of their cases right now, they continue to follow up on leads from a bank robbery in the same plaza back in mid-June.

In that incident, a well-dressed, heavy-set man walked into the People's United Bank, showed the teller a device he said was a bomb and made off with an undisclosed amount of cash. Roy has said in recent months that despite a very good surveillance image, they've had no success locating the robber and it's likely he isn't from around here.

They continue to ask people to look at the surveillance photo and share it on social media, as someone, somewhere, must know who he is.

Though they'd never been burglarized before, the Norrises said they have seen an uptick recently in theft from the store, and Carm was doubly hit in this incident after having her purse stolen from the store on Nov. 8. Someone swiped it while she wasn't looking, sometime between 3 and 5 p.m. The thief attempted to use several of her credit cards in Downtown Nashua and was successful in one transaction she said, but it was a double whammy to find her front door ripped open Sunday morning.

They aren't taking the burglary personally though.

"There's a lot of this going on, a lot, it's everywhere," George Norris said.

Police are asking for anyone with information or who may have seen something suspicious to contact the department at 424-3774, or use the Crimeline phone number to remain anonymous, at 424-2424. Tips can also be submitted by
logging on to the department's web site atwww.merrimackpd.org and clicking on the Submit Webtips link at the bottom of the left side menu.