SOUTH SALT LAKE, Utah -- A Utah couple is out tens of thousands of dollars after burglars allegedly hit their tattoo supply shop in South Salt Lake.
“We are out in the neighborhood of $20,000,” said Fifth Avenue Studio Shop co-owner, Allen Record.
Allen and his wife Ginger stood in front of two glass display cases. Each had an empty top shelf.
“This one hurts, this one hurts,” Allen said.
Allen and Ginger are now counting their small business’s losses after an early morning burglary wiped out two shelves of their most valuable product, chargers and miscellaneous bottles of ink.
“These machines range in price from a low of $200 to a high of $650, and there were dozens taken,” Allen said. “The most valuable things in here were those machines."
The Record’s have a strict clientele at their store. They do not open their doors to the general public, and they only sell products to licensed tattoo artists who are currently working at a shop. Anyone else who visits, they send away.
“This time of year is when tattooers buy and receive new tattoo machines, well now I have nothing to sell them,” Allen said.
Until Sunday morning, the shop has never had an issue.
“When I saw the door had been bashed in and the screen had been knocked out and everything, my heart just sank,” Allen said.
The entire incident was caught on their surveillance camera.
Allen said he believes the thieves had been in the store before. He narrated what was happening in the surveillance footage as the thieves shattered the glass door: “Reached in, unlatched the door. Head down, faces covered. They know exactly where the camera is and there’s no hesitation at all. I just get more and more angry every time I look at this."
Allen believes whoever robbed the shop was among the few customers that had come through their doors in the four days prior.
“If it were some random individual, they would have come in and ransacked this place. This wasn’t ransacked, this was a very, very targeted hit,” Allen said.
So now, their door is boarded - and their shelves sit bare.
“I know it’s a risk in business, but I didn’t think I’d get hit like this,” said Allen.
But they say, they won’t let this break-in, break them.
“We have full intention to get past this and be bigger and better and stronger,” he said.
South Salt Lake Police said they will assign a detective to the case Monday and start an investigation – but it’s hard to say whether or not they will be able to catch these thieves.
Allen and Ginger have reached out to surrounding businesses with exterior surveillance cameras, in the hopes of catching the getaway car on film.
