A restaurant manager says crime near the southern border has impacted his ability to stay open after his businesses endured a string of smash-and-grab robberies just weeks before Christmas.
Ahipoki managing partner Jason Jantzen joined "Fox & Friends First" Wednesday to discuss how the robberies have affected the company's bottom line and its employees.
"We're not opening on time," Jantzen told co-host Todd Piro. "We're not serving our customers… That happens often enough, the people just stop coming… sometimes we're lucky to open at all, so there's a loss of revenue. These employees don't get to work. They're not earning money."
"So it's not just a simple smash and grab where… they take the cash and everything goes on with no consequence," he continued. "There's a lot of people involved, and it really does affect the flow of business."
Jantzen has locations in both California and Arizona, and both have been hit with a series of the smash-and-grab robberies in recent weeks.
One incident, at the Temple City location, was all caught on camera. The footage showed the robber smashing a table and ultimately fleeing with cash and a laptop.
He said that although the motive is unclear, he thinks the border crisis has ultimately fueled the rise in crime since the restaurants are located in close proximity.
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"Arizona and California being border states, we got a massive fentanyl crisis," Jantzen said. "We're seeing hundreds of thousands of pills cross the border each and every day with no consequence. No one's doing anything about it."
"Fentanyl is a massive problem here in Arizona," he continued. "It's a massive problem in California. It's killing kids. It's creating these kinds of addictions. And, of course, they got to feed that addiction so they're committing these kinds of low-level crimes to do that."
Jantzen also called out the state's soft-on-crime policies, arguing the lenient stance has negatively impacted small business and their employees, especially at this time of year.
"A lot of counties, the municipalities out there, they got their own different laws where criminals can… commit crime," Jantzen said. "If it doesn't meet a certain threshold, they don't even get they're not even allowed to arrest them. So… who knows what's going to happen?"
"It certainly hurts small business," he continued. "It hurts employees, and especially around this time of year."
The perpetrators have not yet been caught, but Jantzen said he remains hopeful justice will be served.
"Hopefully we get these people… it's holiday season… but we also know that there's plenty of jobs out there," Jantzen said. "I know… money's tight, but man, don't steal from us. Come, come and work for us."
