UWS Smoke Shop Robbed In Apparent Crime Spree: NYPD

UPPER WEST SIDE, NY - An Upper West Side smoke shop was robbed earlier this month in what police are connecting to a larger crime spree in Manhattan and the Bronx.

The masked suspect entered a smoke shop at 974 Amsterdam Ave. near West 108th Street about 1:37 a.m. on Nov. 13, “simulated” a gun and demanded money from a 26-year-old store worker, police said.

The assailant then struck the store employee on the right hand with a wrench before the clerk forked over $500 from the register, police said.

The attacker fled in a vehicle northbound on Amsterdam Avenue, police said. Medics treated the store worker at the scene.

The same assailant is tied to at least two other smoke shop robberies at simulated gunpoint in the Bronx, police said. Those incidents took place on Sept. 24 at 3007 Third Ave. and Nov. 18 at 3645 Bruckner Boulevard. In both incidents, $200 in cash was removed from the register and no injuries were reported.

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