Griffintown restaurant owners call for heavier police presence following string of break-ins

Some restaurant owners in Griffintown, who are already struggling to stay afloat during the lockdown, are now on the hook for damages and missing items after a series of reported break-ins earlier this month.

Robert Goldberg, co-owner of Mauvais Garçons, said his restaurant was broken into on Feb. 11.

According to Goldberg, the suspect threw a large rock through the window of the restaurant on William Street mere minutes after the restaurant had closed up shop for the night around midnight.

"I don't know if they were watching us or what," Goldberg told CBC.

He said the suspect appears to have come from a side alley and entered the restaurant through the broken window.

The contents of the cash register, as well as a tablet, were stolen and the suspect fled through the back, Goldberg said.

This is the first time Mauvais Garçons has been broken into since it opened four years ago, but Goldberg wasn't completely shocked by the incident.

He said several restaurants in the area, including one right next to his, had been broken into over the past two months.

"We were almost kind of expecting it, so we started leaving the lights on to try and scare them away," he said.

At least five restaurant owners in and around Griffintown told CBC News they were broken into this past month.

"It's terrible timing. You know it's already really tough for restaurants right now just to survive," said Goldberg. "We're like scratching for every dollar we're trying to earn and then we just lose it in repairs or whatever was stolen."

Goldberg estimates the restaurant will have to pay somewhere between $3,000 and $4,000 out of pocket for the repairs. The owners are also fitting the building with bars on the windows to prevent this from happening again.

In an effort to stay positive, Goldberg and his staff have kept the rock used in the break-in as a token of the restaurant's resilience.

"His name is Dwayne Johnson. We named him. He's a member of the family now even though he did us wrong," said Goldberg.

Bird Bar, a restaurant on Notre-Dame Street, dealt with a similar incident earlier this month.

According to manager Antonio Diaz, someone broke in on Valentine's Day. The person reportedly broke the glass, stepped into the restaurant and ran off with wine, liquor bottles, tablets and some of the employees' T4 slips.

"It's not like we're making any money. Right now, anything that we have to put into the restaurant comes out of the owner's pockets," said Diaz. "If we're breaking even, we're lucky."

Diaz estimates the damages at that restaurant to be upwards of $3,000.

"It's been bad news after bad news after bad news, so we're kind of wondering when this is all going to end," he said.

Both Diaz and Goldberg believe the province's curfew, which was put in place to help curb the pandemic, might be a contributing factor.

"I think the curfew is a big part of it because the streets are empty," said Goldberg.

He would like to see more police surveillance in the area and is calling on fellow restaurateurs to be vigilant in the coming weeks.

Montreal police would not comment on the break-ins but, in a statement, said the SPVM has several officers patrolling the area during curfew hours.