Early Thursday morning security footage overlooking the Peddler Bike shop in Austin’s Hyde Park neighborhood recorded a truck, ramming its way through the business’ front doors. Then a van with a band of thieves inside rolled up entered the building are stole thousands of dollars worth of bikes.
AJ Camp owns Peddlers. He says between his Austin shop and the Cedar Park location, his businesses have been burglarized five times so far this year, “and we’ve never had it happen before ever.”
Ever since the pandemic hit, bikes have been in high demand with suppliers having a hard time keeping them in stock. Manufactureres have also had a hard time keeping up with demand. Camp says he’s called around to other area bike stores and each have been burglarized at least twice this year as well.
Not including the damage to the building, Camp says these break ins have cost his business anywhere between $70k and $80k.
Austin Police have responded to these incidents, Camp says, they’ve even managed to chase after the perpetrators but always had to call off the chase due to safety rules. “I do think that its being treated as a non violent crime, so its not being treated super seriously. But there’s alot of us small business owners that are kinda hurting from this.”
He says this spree of robberies have owner operators like him questioning whether or not their businesses are safe from being broken into every month.
