‘Support local’: B.C. boutique owner urges after break-in
Posted May 31, 2023 12:18 pm.
Last Updated May 31, 2023 12:19 pm.
The owner of a Vancouver boutique says she was moments away from closing her business after she says it was broken into just two months after she opened the location.
The owner of Mila and Paige, Anita Dunn, says she got a frantic call from an employee on Thursday morning describing the scene at her Main Street store.
“There were many witnesses, cars were honking at [her], people on the street were yelling at her to stop, but obviously no one’s going to want to interfere. So, a lot of people came to the store after we had opened at 11 o’clock and let us know what happened,” she said.
a botique store front boarded up after a break-in. (Courtesy Mila and Paige)
a botique store front boarded up after a break-in. (Courtesy Mila and Paige)
Dunn has been in business for some time in New Westminster and recently expanded her business to a second location in Mount Pleasant.
“I have one of those rolling gates in front of the window. She smashed the window but she couldn’t get in, so she just reached her arm through the gate and grabbed a couple of purses and a blouse off the mannequin,” she said.
Dunn acknowledges she’s not the only mom-and-pop shop to suffer from break-ins, and urges people to support local shops.
“You support where you spend your dollars. So if you are someone who is shopping online, with big businesses down the road — that’s all that’s going to be left,” she said.
“We won’t see the small local boutiques and shops that make a community anymore.”
Dunn says when she first heard of the break-in she was ready to give up.
“We are just scraping by, and when this happened, I wanted to quit my own business. I was like, ‘I’m done. I don’t want to do this anymore,'” she said.
She says this has also prompted fears of further break-ins.
“Are they going to do it again? Are they going to get my door this time? When I get the window replaced, are they gonna smash it again? Like, you just feel scared and unsafe in your own home, even though it’s my own store, but I don’t feel safe,” she said.
Dunn says she would like more to be done to help prevent crimes like this from happening.
“More patrols, more cops walking the beat. Obviously, this person didn’t care if anyone saw her do it because she did it in plain daylight,” she said.
CityNews has reached out to the Vancouver Police Department for comment.
