ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A boutique owner’s aspiration grew to become clouded with nightmare after nightmare inside weeks of opening her doorways in Uptown.
Leticia Leyba’s dream was straightforward – to sell garments at her company, Groove Boutique.
“I wished to carry a new idea to Albuquerque, a new boutique, striving to get the boutique variety of scene heading below in Albuquerque,” Leyba reported.
She underestimated the price of generating that aspiration a truth, however.
A female also crashed as a result of the storefront previous calendar year, location back again opening working day by about nine months.
Ideal in advance of opening, a gentleman attempted breaking in but only broke the boutique’s door.
A week later on, various men and women took far more than $5,000 value of merchandise.
The subsequent week, extra thieves stole a further $2,000 truly worth of solution.
Just after that third split-in, we talked to Leyba.
“It’s personal at this place. I’ll be proper in this article. It is no large deal,” she explained.
Then, the future working day, a person threatened Leyba as she tried out opening the retail outlet.
“He threatened to shoot me and he explained he was going to destroy me. He mentioned that we ended up married at a single stage but I did not figure out him mainly because he was of a unique ethnicity at the time,” Leyba reported.
Pei Wei workers affirm it took place but did not want to go on camera.
Considering the fact that that break-in, Leyba is applying her personal precautions.
“I have a bat powering my counter. I have a taser and I have mase. We maintain our door locked,” she reported.
She’ll also have a sign in her window shortly also, warning possible criminals about the lengths she’ll go to protect her enterprise.
“I have gotten my hid carry and I do prepare on preserving myself armed at all instances due to the fact it is like residing in the wild wild west in Albuquerque. I’m not the only a person. I’m significantly from the only one that is heading as a result of this. It is an epidemic in Albuquerque and smaller companies are remaining specific simply because we are the simple targets,” Leyba stated.
In the meantime, she has a speech prepared to convey to the town council following 7 days. She also doesn’t strategy to stop there.
“I am not likely to let this take me down and I have a voice. I have a powerful voice and I strategy on applying it,” Leyba emphasized.
Following the string of crack-ins previously this month, APD promised to set up cameras connected to the city’s true-time criminal offense heart. Leyba claims they delivered on that assure times afterwards.