Brazen burglars have been seen stealing safes and money from cash registers in the Pearl District, but these business owners aren’t alone as small businesses are being hit in Southwest Portland too.
Two business owners that have been in Portland for decades said the past year and a half feels like one punch after the next.
Small business owner, Helen Johnson, has worked hard to run her family diner, Fat City Cafe, in Multnomah Village for more than two decades.
For the first time in all those years, her restaurant was burglarized in the middle of the night this past week. The thief took a couple hundred dollars and forced the owners to spend money to change all their locks.
Johnson said it hurts.
“It’s not so much about the money that was in the register or the till — it’s the violation,” Johnson said. “Are they watching us, do they know when we leave?”
That sense of uncertainty and worry is a feeling Casey Edwards knows all too well.
