Thieves looted vintage liquor cabinet and cash from a restaurant in Toronto

Amit Sukhwani, the owner of a Maezo restaurant in Toronto suffered nearly a loss of $20,000 after a group of thieves broke into the restaurant and cleaned out the high-end liquor cabinet. Sukhwani has owned the  business for nearly two years, and he says this is the first time it’s been broken into.

But most surprising is why  it took police nearly 12 hours to answer his call for help.

The restaurant was looted in the early hours of Saturday morning. Owner Amit Sukhwani says he went to the restaurant later that morning after he received a call from the building’s security company.

He says he found his front door shattered, his register cleaned out, laptop and tablets stolen and about $16,000 in high-end liquor missing.

A group of three to five people are seen in the CCTV footage with backpacks loitering around the restaurant earlier in the day. Sukhwani believes the same group came back later that night to break in.

He says his restaurant carries a variety of single-malt scotches, wines and rums, including some that aren’t available at the LCBO.

He  added that the thieves left his restaurant in a massive mess and he was forced to shut down over the long weekend but that wasn’t the only factor keeping his doors closed.

He shared, “Since the cops are not here you could not clean up the place. Why? Because then you’re messing with the crime scene,” adding that the attending officer mentioned it took a while to come because 52 Division, was short-staffed and the call was not high priority.

Sukhwani says he called police as soon as he realized he’d been robbed. A spokesperson for Toronto police confirmed they received a call at 10:35 a.m., but didn’t respond until 9:08 p.m

She said, “This was a Saturday morning of a long weekend in 52 Division. We prioritize all of our calls and we were dealing with higher priority calls at the time.”

Sukhwani says he’s spoken with his insurance company and they’ll likely cover all his costs, but it will take time and effort to replace some of his unique bottles.

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