On most mornings, Libby Meissner is preparing Crave, her popular restaurant in downtown Ansonia, for the usual rush of daily lunch customers.
On Tuesday, however, Meissner found herself dealing with police and her insurance agent after one of her employees arrived at work to find the restaurant’s front door smashed in and its safe emptied of cash.
The restaurant has security cameras, Meissner said, but the system that records video from the cameras wasn’t locked up.
“They took that with them,” she said.
Ansonia Police Lt. Andrew Cota said more than $1,000 was taken from the business.
And police believe the Crave burglary is connected to two other overnight break-ins at Seymour businesses — because the cash register from one of the businesses was found in Crave’s parking lot Tuesday morning.
“Initially I thought it was mine,” Meissner said. “But I looked at it closely and it said ‘Ozzie’s Pizza,’ from Seymour.”
Ozzie’s owner Leonora Trdevaj said Tuesday that employees of the Main Street family restaurant arrived at work Tuesday to find the business’ front door smashed in the same fashion as Crave’s was.
Neither of the restaurants had an alarm system.
Trdevaj said the cash register itself was worth more than its contents — “probably $20 in coins” — Monday night.
“They didn’t touch anything else,” she said.
She said the restaurant had to stay closed Tuesday morning as police investigated the break-in but was taking orders again as of about 1 p.m.
“It’s just a hassle,” Trdevaj said, noting it’s the first such incident in the business’ seven years in downtown Seymour. “Just because you own a business doesn’t mean you have millions of dollars sitting in it.”
A hair salon next door to Ozzie’s was also burglarized overnight, Seymour Police Deputy Chief Paul Satkowski said Tuesday.
Satkowski said Seymour detectives would be coordinating their investigation with Ansonia cops since the cash register from Ozzie’s was found next to Crave.
“We’ll be reviewing all that to try to determine (any connection),” Satkowski said.
Sitting inside her restaurant about noon Tuesday, Meissner said she was disappointed but said the eatery would be open again by evening.
She said she’d have an alarm system installed that would incorporate wireless cameras she could monitor at her house.
“It’s lesson learned, because now I’m going to be real anal about my security,” she said.
“My faith in humanity has been shaken a bit,” Meissner said. “But you can’t keep a good dog down. I’m OK. It could have been worse.”
Ansonia police sent an e‑mail to local business owners Tuesday afternoon notifying them about the thefts and recommending they check their security systems regularly and alert employees about the thefts “so that they will be more vigilant about their surroundings.”
They asked that anyone noticing suspicious activity notify police immediately, and anyone with information about the burglaries to contact the department’s detective bureau at 203 – 735-1885.
