Optical-Shop Robberies Spike on Both Coasts

In California, thieves took $200,000 in merchandise in two minutes.

Anyone with an eye on the news is aware that there has been a spike in optical-shop robberies lately. As frame prices creep ever upward, petty thieves who in an earlier time would have done their thieving at jewelry stores are now heading for eyewear stores – and disturbingly, they’re getting good at it. Case in point: Blue Eyes Optical in Glendale CA, which lost some $200,000 worth of luxury frames in what owner Gor Vartanyan says was exactly two minutes last Sunday afternoon. Security cameras caught the whole thing, but “They didn’t care,” says Vartanyan. “They’re not scared of getting caught.” The same day in Lakeland, FL, a burglar or burglars stole the entire inventory — $119.000 – from a Sunglass Hut.

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