MEMPHIS, Tenn — Friday and Saturday’s break-ins came with an extra cost for at least two of the affected businesses (Soul Fish Café and Sugar Ghost): repairing shattered windows and glass doors.
The seemingly constant break-ins are keeping glass repair companies busy and in high demand. Glass Doctor in Memphis told ABC24 Monday they have 15-20 commercial clients waiting on glass.
They say about 60 to 70% of those customers are because of break-ins.
“We just had these three pieces of glass come in today,” home and business manager Matt Brown said. “They will be installed tomorrow and these will be for store fronts that were broken into within the past couple weeks.”
Brown says glass repair calls are up 10 to 20% in 2023 and he says crime is the reason why.
Brown says Glass Doctor has done five or six glass replacements at businesses during the last week of November and says they average about two or three calls for their services per day.
“As far as our wait list now, I would say we’re a week out and we got a pretty long list,” Brown said. “Our schedule is full.”
He says it's virtually the same across the entire glass repair industry in Memphis.
Brown says they have gone through about a case of 40 panes of glass they use for store front doors per month over the past three months.
“We got this case back in probably the 1st of November and I got to order another one today,” he said.
Brown says that while glass repair shops can keep up with this pace, Memphis business owners are paying a heavy price.
“Whatever you lost in the break-in, plus your insurance is going to go up, and some insurances will drop you if you keep getting broken into,” he said.
Brown says small businesses in Memphis can only afford so many glass replacements, and if the break-ins continue, it’s only a matter of time before they leave the city for good.
He says he’s lost clients before for this exact reason.
“Small business owners that said ‘I can’t do it no more,’ so they shut down,” Brown said.
Brown says Glass Doctor also installs burglar bars and bullet-resistant glass. He says calls for both are up in 2023.