HOUSTON — Fed-up Houston bar owners are putting pressure on city leaders. It comes after repeated break-ins have caused some owners to sleep in their businesses -- armed.
A group of bar owners brought their frustrations to Houston City Council on Wednesday.
“I have been burglarized 15 times in the last year,” Lindsey Rae said.
She's the owner of the Two-Headed Dog in Midtown. Rae was speaking on behalf of a coalition of bar owners who have been repeatedly hit.
Rae pointed to the Houston Police Department’s response time.
"The response times to the alarms are anywhere from an hour to four hours," she said.
She also highlighted what they believe are re-offenders.
"We’re seeing, if they are getting caught, they're getting re-released because of the cash bond issues we’re having. They can come back and rob us again," Rae said.
Sean Fitzmaurice is the owner of Reserve 101.
"That is the biggest problem right now, me and plenty of other bar owners are sleeping in our bars armed,” Fitzmaurice said.
Marin Slanina owns Star Sailor in the Heights.
"We are all getting broken into and things in bars are getting stolen," Slanina said.
Fitzmaurice and Slanina were among the bar owners who showed up Wednesday.
Several council members spoke up in response and many stressed it's an issue HPD is addressing.
"They're looking when these break-ins are happening and when they can add resources at those times,” council member Robert Gallegos said.
“Just be confident that your police department is investigating those cases,” council member Michael Knox said.
Council members in districts where bars have been targeted said they plan to follow up with the owners to help foster solutions.
This comes a week after KHOU 11 News reported on the ongoing burglaries. It's a problem that has put several of these small business owners thousands of dollars in the hole. The group said they’re coming together as a unit.
"This is a string of break-ins. The lack of action from anybody has been the catalyst for all of us to get together,” Fitzmaurice said.
"It's not just money that can replace these things, it's something we need to get a handle on,” Slanina said.
HPD said it has increased patrols in the areas. The department said it's also working to educate business owners on what they can do to avoid becoming a target.
More owners plagued by thieves
Some of the owners said investigators have appeared to show more interest in the crimes after last week’s report, but the burglaries certainly haven’t stopped.
“I’d saved up money for years, and I found this place and bought this place,” Coaches Pub owner Robert Curry said.
He moved from Missouri to Houston eight months ago when he saw the bar was for sale. Curry had finally gotten the chance to start his dream.
“I lived in my RV for the first four months that I was here in Houston to get it started,” Curry said. “And honestly, it was my baby.”
Business was good at the Midtown pub for the first several months under Curry’s ownership.
Football season and the World Series games brought standing-room-only crowds to the bar. But three months ago, the honeymoon ended.
“Do you regret your decision to come to Houston?” KHOU 11’s Matt Dougherty asked.
“I’m going to be honest,” Curry said. “Sometimes I do.”
Like the other owners, Curry has also been forced to sleep in his bar at times to protect his property. The pub was most recently hit on Friday. Surveillance video showed what happened once the thief got inside.
“Weirdly enough, he likes amaretto, so there’s a bottle that he just can’t resist,” Curry said. “And I mean he will shop. He would pick them up and set them on the cooler across, and then come back and take what he wanted.”
But more expensive than the stolen booze is the damage Curry has to repair the morning after the burglaries. 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,” Curry said. “With repairs and everything, it’s cost it’s over 10 grand right now."
Curry said police generally respond once they’re notified by the alarm company, but the thief always manages to get away. He said every time is the same: police take a report, give him a number, then they leave.
“I love police officers, but I think if we don’t pay attention to the smaller problems they become bigger problems,” Curry said.
The burglaries have become a big and expensive problem for Fitzmaurice who owns Reserve 101.
“The next time he comes is potentially going to be the last time that he comes,” he said.
Fitzmaurice’s 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 which is kind of a language none of us want to speak,” he said.
Fitzmaurice's nationally-ranked whiskey bar has been at the corner of Caroline and Dallas streets for the past 14 years. The cost of the recent break-ins at Reserve 101 is substantial.
“I’d say that he’s around $100,000 now between the amount of money that he’s taken, the amount of bottles that he’s taken, the repairs that we’ve had to do,” Fitzmaurice said. “It’s been brutal.”
Since the break-ins, the owner said his rarest, most-expensive bottles of whiskey have been moved off-site.
“There’s other bottles that he’s taken that are just irreplaceable in the sense that they don’t exist anymore,” he said.
Fitzmaurice said he’s pretty much given up on repairs.
“He’s come so many times that we’ve stopped fixing the window because he comes every week and we’re tired of replacing the window every week,” he said.
Although the crimes are considered non-violent offenses, Fitzmaurice said law enforcement and judges need to take them seriously.
For now, he and the other owners said they’ve been left to fend for themselves.
“These guys are in and out in 15 minutes,” Fitzmaurice said. “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 policing them right now.”
Many of the owners said last call is quickly approaching. If the break-ins don’t stop, it will be closing time for their bars for good.
“I don’t know what to do anymore,” Curry said. “If it doesn’t change ... if something doesn’t work out in a better way, there’s no way you can hold on to it. I can’t. I can’t hold on to it.”
An HPD spokesman said officers are actively investigating the burglaries and will continue to collaborate with the bar owners to identify and find the suspects.