Group Robs UWS Smoke Shop, Several Others In Manhattan: Police

UPPER WEST SIDE, NY — Police are looking for a quartet of robbers who targeted an Upper West Side smoke shop where they repeatedly punched a store clerk in the head and swiped $300 in cash from the register, officials said.

The same gang of four may have also robbed at least seven other shops in Manhattan and Brooklyn, according to police, and have stolen over $5,000 in total in the sometimes violent crimes where workers were left injured.

According to police officials, the first location the group struck was a stone on the Upper East Side on First Avenue near East 68th Street nearly two months ago.

On Oct. 22 at around 10:50 p.m., a group of four men entered the shop and took a tobacco grinder and attempted to access the cash register, police said.

A brave 25-year-old chased the group out of the store and, after a struggle, was able to hold the front door shut to keep them from coming back in, according to officials.

The worker suffered a small cut to his hands and was treated by first responders at the scene, police said.

Weeks later — and after robbing a store in Chelsea and another in Kips Bay — the same group robbed a smoke shop at 483 Columbus Ave., police said.

On Nov. 28 about 4:25 p.m., the group of men entered the shop, with one of the men blocked the entrance door while the three others broke the counter door, police said.

The men then jumped behind the counter and punched the 25-year-old employee multiple times in the head, police said. The men then removed $300 cash from the register, broke the glass to a cabinet and removed an unknown amount of store merchandise.

The victim sustained minor injuries but refused medical attention at the scene.

The same men are also tied to an Oct. 24 incident at a grocery store on 321 West 100 St. where they left without paying for sandwiches, which in total cost $80.

When a 30-year-old store employee tried to stop the men, one of them displayed a knife, police said.

Anyone with information in regard to these incidents is asked to call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782).