Moncton pawn shop starts community watch program to curb crime

A Moncton paw shop has started a community watch group to curb crime.

Hossam Sif-Aldin escaped war in Syria and came to Moncton, N.B., with his family in 2017.

When he arrived, he had next to nothing.

So, he drove a taxi and tried a few other things before eventually opening his own grocery store.

HS Empire has been a success, winning business awards in 2021 and 2022.

But lately, he’s been a victim of crime.

When he arrived at work on Mountain Road last week, he discovered the windows in one of his delivery vans had been smashed.

“And we found our car that was here in the parking lot. We found it was broken in and someone broke it and damaged the glass,” said Sif-Aldin.

A few weeks before that, copper wire in the air-conditioning units were stripped out.

The store has also been broken into a few times, with phones and cash stolen.

HS Empire’s first location was in Dieppe, and Sif-Aldin said he didn’t have any problems there.

“No one touched my store in Dieppe,” said Sif-Aldin. “Why it’s happened with me here on Mountain Road, I don’t know.”

Pawn shop owner creates community watch page

Now, his neighbour wants to do something to help.

The manager of Nerdful Things, a pawn shop that specializes in collectables, has started a community watch program for businesses on Mountain Road.

Zoe Furlong said, in the past month or so, there’s been an uptick in vandalism and break-ins at local businesses.

“And in response I started a community watch page so that we could stick together and report these incidents so that if someone is going store-to-store we know before they get to us,” said Furlong.

So far, seven different businesses on Mountain Road have signed up and Furlong is happy to take more.

The plan is to form a communication link where businesses can report and observe and notify one another when trouble is on the way.

“So, nothing vigilante-style for certain,” she said. “What we are trying to do is, because we are a pawn shop, people will bring stolen items in and if we try to get them back, oftentimes they’ll run before the police can get involved. We would like to cut out the middleman, and if something is stolen, we know before the item comes in.”

There’s been trouble lately at another business just up the road.

Up in Smoke Shoppe co-owner Dixit Panchal said someone smashed their front window last Saturday and stole some goods.

It’s the third time something like this has happened in the past few months, he said.

Recently, someone broke through the roof and grabbed a couple hundred dollars of products.

The smashed window will cost $1,200 to $1,500 to replace.

They’ve called the police every time, just as Sif-Aldin has.

As far as joining Furlong’s community watch, Panchal said they’re interested.

“Yes, a hundred per cent. It would be a great help for the business owners. All the business owners can talk to each other and have something that they can communicate [with] and they can do something better about this issue,” said Panchal.

He’s noticed multiple break-ins on the street lately.

“If you go down from Mountain Road to the other end, you’re going to see three or four businesses damaged overnight,” said Panchal.

Sif-Aldin, frustrated with what’s going on with his business, is also interested in joining the community watch.

“We should because no one help us here,” said Sif-Aldin. “We should be together in the neighbourhood here to protect ourselves.”

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