West Seattle smoke shop targeted by thieves for 3rd time this week; 2nd business damaged

SEATTLE — Thieves targeted the same West Seattle smoke shop for the eighth time in a month, but a second business was also damaged this time.

Thursday’s incident at the strip mall at Southwest Roxbury Street and 35th Avenue Southwest is the third one this week, but this time, the thieves were not successful.

Global Smoke & Vape was burglarized on Tuesday and Wednesday when criminals used cars to ram the storefront and then ran inside and stole products.

Since then, the shop owner had a row of posts installed in front of the business to prevent another smash-and-grab burglary, and they appear to have helped. In Thursday’s incident, the shop was still damaged, but no one got inside.

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The business next door, A Pizza Mart, was also damaged in the overnight burglary attempt.

When people tried to ram their way inside the smoke shop, they hit the front of the pizza business, leaving a broken window and glass scattered everywhere.

We spoke with one of the pizza shop owners about the crime.

“It makes us feel unsafe, and we need more like watch here, someone needs to watch this area a lot more, not just us, maybe like police patrolling around or something,” he said.

The co-owner of the pizza shop said there was an armed robbery there in March.

On Wednesday, we spoke with the owner of the smoke shop, who is frustrated by the repeated attacks on his business.

“I’m a small business owner, I pay the tax, (and) I need safety too, right? How can I survive, every day this is happening?” he said.

He said the burglars are selling his merchandise online through social media posts.

He’s considering hiring security guards.

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