Picture by Felipe Brenner
The Sidetrack Café, a local business located at the Wortley village has been the target of not one but two break-ins.
According to Co-Owner Mano Majumdar the first case happened back in October while the most recent one happened just a few days ago on January 19th.
“It was exhausting, frustrating, and surprising,” he says “When I got the news of the second break-in, I initially thought I was seeing the messages from October, but turns out both incidents were identical.”
After the first incident, a temporary plywood door was placed to replace the glass, and Alaina a local artist painted the door to make it more appealing to customers.
The new glass door took many weeks to arrive and it did at the beginning of January, only to be destroyed again following the second break-in.
“We replaced the temporary door with the new one on January 11th, and it was destroyed on the 19th, so our door lasted not very long at all,” recalls Majumdar
The thefts and repair cost has added up to thousands for the small business, that opened its doors for the first time back in 2019.
Temporary wood door. Photo by Felipe Brenner
Despite the incident, Majumdar says he is happy to see how much support they have gotten from the community.
“We are now seen as a very important part of the community. We always felt welcomed here but we didn’t realize how much we are supported by our community.”
“Businesses that had never spoken to, and community members we had never seen stepped up and made donations to help out the business,” he says “the sheer of community support has just blown us away.”
To help pay for the costs the owners have decided to start a fundraiser and to also auction off the painted door along with other artwork from the same artist who helped the business after the first incident.
“It is a beautiful work of art and we want to auction it off to raise money that will help cover some of the cost.”
Majumdar is also working closely with other local businesses to develop other ways to prevent these incidents from happening and to protect the customers and staff.
“We want to make sure that our Café continues to be a safe place, where our customers can come and feel welcomed and at home, and where our staff can work with ease and peace,” concluded Majumdar.
For more information go to https://www.sidetrack.cafe/ or to donate go to https://trellis.org/sidetrack-a-wortley-cafe
The Sidetrack café located at the Wortley Village has been broken into not once but twice in 4 months, a big loss for the small business. Read the full story here: https://t.co/c7iw3kRtic
— Felipe (@Felipe13436267) January 24, 2023
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