The owner of a local laundromat hopes someone can identified the thief he thinks robbed his shop twice in the span of just a few weeks.
The Towne Laundry in Riverside was robbed around 1:45 a.m. today by a man who ripped the coin boxes from the dryers and hit the vending machine.
Alan Hunter said he thinks it's the same suspect who robbed his shop two weeks ago. And Hunter said it is part of a troubling trend of these thefts in the area.
Laundro-Mania, just a mile away on Smithville Road, was also robbed twice in less than a week. Someone used a pry bar to open get into the coin boxes. It caused hundreds of dollars in damage.
"Obviously we're hoping to get him caught and put in jail," Hunter said. "I have the feeling he's done this at other laundromats in the area. I'm assuming all us laundromat owners would like to see him put away so we can have the peace of mind when we go to bed at night knowing our stores are not going to be destroyed."
Hunter said his shop is open 24/7, but if the damaging thefts continue, he'll have to close at night.
The suspect in the early morning theft also had a woman acting as look-out, he said. The theft took about 15 minutes.
He said the shop has been open since 2009 and never had problems in the past.
