A group of Houston bar owners,
fed up with constant break INS,
took their frustrations to City Hall today.
Yeah, they did.
Some of the owners say they've been
sleeping in their businesses with
firearms to protect their livelihoods.
They are urging city leaders to take
a closer look at this problem for
small businesses across the city.
One complaint how long it's taking
for police to respond to a burglary.
The response times to the alarms
are usually anywhere from an hour
to four hours and after that we're
seeing if they are getting caught,
they're getting released.
Know that because of the cash
bond issue that we're having,
they can come back and rob us again.
HD says they're working to
educate owners on what they can
do to reduce becoming a target.
The department says it has also
increased patrols in the areas
where we first talked to bar owners
sleeping in those bars last week and
tonight, Matt Doherty spoke to more of them
about the relentless wave of break INS.
That's costing them a lot of money. Matt.
Some of our owners told us that
investigators have appeared to show
more interest in the crimes since we
aired our first report last week.
However, the burglaries have not stopped.
I saved up money for years
and I found this place.
I'm bought this place. Eight
months ago, Robert Curry left
Missouri for Houston. He'd finally
gotten a chance to start his dream.
I lived in my RV for the first
four months at all in this.
I'm here in Houston to get it started,
and it was my baby. Business was
good at Coach's pub in Midtown for the first
several months under Curry's ownership,
football season and the World Series games
brought standing room only crowds to the bar.
About three months ago, the honeymoon ended.
Robert Curry's pub is among the many
establishments in and around downtown
where owners we met with say they've
been plagued by serial thieves.
Like the others, he too has been
forced to sleep in his bar to protect
his property overnight coaches.
Pub was most recently hit again on Friday.
Surveillance video shows what happens
once the thief finds a way to get inside
and he was shocked.
I mean, he would pick him up
and sit him down on the cooler,
cross and then come back.
Didn't take what he wanted.
But more expensive than the
stolen booze is the damage Curry
has to repair the morning after,
despite adding security film
to the windows and installing
wrought iron bars inside the pub,
nothing has worked.
As soon as you get everything repaired,
he's breaking something else
and everything is cost.
It's over 10 grand right now,
Curry says. Police generally respond once
they're notified by the alarm company,
but the thief always manages to get away.
The bar owner says every time is the same.
Police take a report.
Give them a number and then they leave.
Because I love Lisa. But I think
if we don't pay attention to the
smaller problems, they
become bigger problems.
The next time he comes is potentially
going to be the last time that he comes
one mile away in downtown.
The burglaries have become a
big problem for Sean Fitzmorris,
who owns Reserve 101.
His bar has been hit five
times in the past five weeks.
We're kind of in the same position that a
lot of these other guys are where some of
us are sleeping in bars with protection.
Fitzmorris's nationally ranked
Whiskey Bar has been here at the
corner of Carolina and Dallas
streets for the past 14 years.
The cost of the recent break INS is.
Substantial.
And I would say that he's at
around $100,000 now. Since
the break ends.
If Fitzmorris says his rarest,
most expensive bottles of whiskey
have been moved off site.
As for repairs,
he's pretty much given up.
He's come so many times that we
have stopped boarding up that
we've stopped fixing the window
because he comes every week,
and we're tired of replacing
the window every week. Although
the crimes are considered nonviolent
offenses, Fitzmorris says law enforcement
and judges need to take them seriously.
For now, he and the other owners say
they've been left to fend for themselves.
These guys are in and out in 15 minutes.
We have a police substation
that's two blocks away from us.
The quickest response that we've
gotten is around 45 minutes.
We know that we're the ones
that are really the ones that
are policing them right now.
I don't know what to do anymore if
it doesn't change, if if something
doesn't work out in a better way,
there's no way you can hold on to it.
I can't. We can't hold on to it.
We spoke with Houston police again this week.
They tell us that investigators
are still actively looking into
these crimes and they say they are
collaborating with the bar owners.
To locate and identify
these suspects back to you.