After multiple break-ins and $150K in losses, Ottawa business owner questions police response

An Ottawa business owner is speaking out after his two stores were targeted by thieves and says he’s frustrated with how long police took to respond.

An Ottawa business owner says he is facing an estimated $150,000 in losses after thieves repeatedly targeted his laptop and mobile repair stores in Vanier and Barrhaven.

Avein Porwal, owner of Geeks Know This, says his two locations have been hit five times in just a few months, including the latest break-in at his Vanier store early Monday morning.

Security video from the store shows thieves entering the laptop and mobile repair shop around 2 a.m. and making off with thousands of dollars worth of merchandise within minutes.

“They took all the speakers, sound system, AirPods, monitors, they took everything,” Porwal said.

Porwal says his Vanier location has now been targeted three times in just over a week, including two burglaries and one attempted break-in.

His Barrhaven store was also broken into in April shortly after opening earlier this year, and one week later thieves tried to get in again.

“They shattered the entire glass, they shattered the entire door of my entrance,” he said. “They walked inside, the alarm system went off, and the entire store vanished in like five minutes,” he said.

Porwal estimates the total losses from the break-ins are roughly $150,000, but he says thefts are only part of the problem.

“I just don’t understand why it is taking five or six hours for a city like Ottawa,” Porwal said.

He says officers took several hours to respond to some of the break-ins. After reporting Monday’s incident, Porwal says he waited more than 24 hours for a police response.

“In the Vanier case, we reported the incident in the morning around 7:15, and at that time they told me the break-in teams usually start at 8:30, so call us after 8:30,” he said.

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In a statement to CTV News, the Ottawa Police Service said two people have been arrested and charged in connection with the Barrhaven burglary.

Police say the Vanier incident is under active investigation, adding response times can vary depending on other priority calls happening at the same time.

Porwal says he is now facing mounting costs, including new inventory, new glass, new security equipment and potentially higher insurance premiums. He says the insurance process could take months, forcing him to pay upfront to keep the business running.

Despite the losses, Porwal says closing is not an option. Although he hasn’t been able to re-open his location on Greenbank since the break-in.

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“I have a lease which is signed for another five or six years, so I’m not allowed to leave from here. The moment my lease is done, I’m just going to leave Ottawa and maybe go to a different city,” he said.

CTV News also spoke with two other business owners in the same plaza who say they have also been broken into in the past year or so.

“If [police] don’t stop this right now, I don’t know how small businesses will survive,” Porwal said.