Five shops hit by burglars in a San Rafael shopping plaza

Burglary spree plagues San Rafael mall

Surveillance video captures burglars breaking into a donut shop at the Northgate One Shopping Center, just one of five businesses hit over the weekend.

SAN RAFAEL, Calif. - A bold and blatant series of burglaries plagued five merchants at a popular shopping center in one of Marin's nicer neighborhoods where such crimes are few and far between.       

Burglary spree 

What we know:

The Northgate One shopping plaza in San Rafael's Terra Linda, is a safe, friendly and well-liked group of stores and shops. It was also a smash-and-grab target for mostly inept thieves.

Thieves in the night came to San Rafael's Northgate One Shopping Center just after 3 a.m. Saturday morning, blatantly victimizing five businesses using hammers to break glass doors.

Bee Nettvong, co-owner of the family-owned Jelly Donuts shop, was preparing donuts for Saturday's upcoming business. 

"I heard something crack. Then I come out and I see my door is broke out. I see tow guys in the door, the front door, two guys. After that, I look inside, I have one guy in my shop, and then, I loud. ‘Oh my God. Oh my God’ and he hear me and they saw me, they run away," said Nettvong.

Other than almost $900 in door repairs, she was lucky. Other unattended stores were not so lucky.

Other stores hit

The Sonoma Taco shop suffered a lot of loss and damage. "One of the registers like this one was stolen, they damaged our reader for the kitchen, they broke the window, they damaged the office, the security cameras," said cashier Jose Ochoa.

Silberman's Ice Cream shop's door is still boarded up. 

"They were specifically looking for cash and ended up with our cash box that's underneath our register system and took it out to the car with them, put it in the truck and took off," said owner Curtis Silberman.

Damages at Bagel Street Cafe had to be repaired. Also repaired was the Calgang Thai Restaurant, which always leaves its cash drawer open, devoid of any folding money.

A chase

The San Rafael police arrived within minutes of the glass breaking and issued this statement. "Officers gave chase to the suspect-vehicle, that was believed to be a stolen getaway car.  Due to concerns for public safety, the pursuit was terminated as the vehicle sped into Richmond along Interstate 580."

The concern and consequences remain. "It was really chaos. It is still. We're trying to get back to normal. But it's not that easy," said taco shop employee Ochoa. "I don't think they'll be coming back anytime soon. For us, this happens about once every ten years." said ice cream shop owner Silverman.

Police say this is a priority for their department due to the scale of the attack and its impact on merchants.