Commercial burglaries in Sacramento spiked after stay-at-home order. Now they’re declining

An Aioli Bodega Espanola employee knocked the remaining glass out of the midtown Spanish restaurant’s shattered door at around 8:45 a.m. Tuesday. Two people had thrown a rock through it late Monday night and broken in before neighbors chased them off, owner Aziz Bellarbi-Salah said.

Their take? Two bottles of liquor worth a combined $50. The door will cost $600 to replace.

Aioli’s break-in mirrors a disconcerting trend. After a brief reprieve the week the shelter-in-place order to stop the coronavirus’ spread took effect, Sacramento businesses suffered a rash of burglaries that only began slowing last week.

Some, like Centro Cocina Mexicana and E Tea, have fully or partially boarded up their windows to prevent theft. The Downtown Sacramento Partnership is urging businesses to go the other direction: keep the windows open, lights on and people inside from time to time.

“When there’s an open window with the light on, shining on you, you’re less inclined to break that window ... for fear you’ll be seen,” said DSP public space services director Dion Dwyer. “(Doing so) also makes it clearer if (the building) has been breached. If the lights are on every night and then all of a sudden they’re not on or things inside have been ransacked, that’s an opportunity to contact the business owner and have them take a look.”

The Sacramento Police Department fielded 85 commercial burglary calls the week of March 2 and 80 the week of March 9, according to department statistics. Only 59 calls came in the week of March 16 as Gov. Gavin Newsom issued the shelter-in-place order.

But as businesses sat around unattended and people began settling into their new lives sheltering-in-place, break-ins soared. Police got 90 calls about commercial burglaries the week of March 23 and 94 the week of March 30. Those calls resulted in 31 and 29 burglaries being logged during those time frames.

There were another 28 commercial burglaries the week of April 6 but just 14 the week of April 13, according to department statistics. Sacramento police spokesman Karl Chan declined to attribute the decline to anything in particular but noted in a media release Tuesday that police had increased patrols, especially during night hours and around business corridors, hospitals and shopping centers.

“It is sometimes difficult to tell what is affecting trends in crime,” Chan wrote in an email to The Sacramento Bee. “What we do know is that our business community is vulnerable in times like this, and we will continue with our extra protective measures to protect the business community during this health crisis.”

Police responded to the uptick by establishing an online business directory to quickly disseminate area-specific information for operators. All commercial burglary alarms are now entered as a call for service to be dispatched, even if the business or property owner can’t be reached. Vacant restaurants and bars such as Republic Bar & Grill have also taped flyers warning of active Sacramento Police Department monitoring to their doors.

Aioli gets broken into about once a year, and Bellarbi-Salah said he considers it part of doing business in the Handle District. He’s held off installing security cameras out of concern that doing so would make Aioli feel inhospitable, but conceded that Monday night’s break-in called for them.

The men took a $20 bottle of bourbon sitting next to a $100 bottle, Bellarbi-Salah said, indicating they were more interested in a quick fix than any sort of sophisticated theft. Bellarbi-Salah doesn’t expect them to face any sort of repercussion for the crimes, he said, having never seen punishment in other small-scale commercial burglaries.

“I think the only reason we’re seeing an uptick in this (type of crime) is just the fact that there’s not a lot of the public out and about,” Bellarbi-Salah said. “Unfortunately, it seems like these acts of small burglary and vandalism aren’t a high priority for police.”