- Break-in in central Taft left Jo’s Family Restaurant with a shattered window, stolen cash register, and a bill for the damage caused.
- Entire staff left to feel the need to take extra precaution, while keeping an eye out more than they once were.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
Jo’s Family Restaurant has been in business for 30 years, and it's filled with artwork that's been part of their long history. Due to a recent break-in, they are now left with a broken window, a stolen cash register, and a part of that small history gone.
“That glass was originally painted by a local painter, Chris, and which is something we’re not going to be able to get back, the letters original to the restaurant, which is you know sad,” says restaurant waitress Berenice Flores.
Flores says the man who created the artwork has passed away, leaving his creation shattered. The owner of the restaurant Jo Fuller, told me it's going to cost 15 hundred dollars to replace the window, and another 3-to-400 to get a new cash register. A big damage in bills just for the thief to get away with just under 30 dollars.
Just a few buildings down from Jo’s, at the Taft Chamber of Commerce, executive director, and business owner Kathy Orrin says the chamber has had issues in the past with people throwing a brick through their glass window. She says just down the street, a sandwich shop was also broken into a couple of times in the past few years as well.
“There was a time when somebody went down Kern Street and did that, I think of three different windows at one time, as you can imagine that’s an expense nobody wants to endure,” continues Orrin.
Orrin says it was very concerning because she knows how much money and time it takes to get things fixed. She says she's broken-hearted that the family restaurant would be in any way compromised. She knows the owners and many others who are regulars who love adding Jo’s Family Restaurant to their daily routine.
“Keep on coming, having your coffees with us, we’ll feel safer with them in here, you know unity makes it better than being alone, so just don’t leave us,” says Flores.
Anyone with information can contact the Taft City Police department and submit a crime tip at 661-763-3101 or go on their website https://www.cityoftaft.org/pview.aspx?id=5379&catid=562
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