AKRON, Ohio — Some small restaurant owners in Akron are concerned after they said a group of thieves are targeting their grease traps.
Watch the restaurant owners' concerns below:
“I can’t believe that these people are taking advantage of the smaller places,” said Leslie Reyes, co-owner of The Hungry Fork.
At least twice a week, Reyes and her team dump dirty cooking oil into a black container to try and get some money to “pour back” into The Hungry Fork in Akron, which has only been around for 10 months.
“By the pound, they give me money back for it,” said Reyes.
While hundreds of dollars may not seem like a lot, Reyes said it does help.
That’s why she’s hurting after her Blink camera caught three people who came onto the restaurant’s property without permission, damaged their grease trap and then stole the grease inside early Tuesday morning.
“When I think about The Hungry Fork, I think about this is my home. I come here and I eat great, amazing food and I get to go home and still feel like I never left,” said Reyes.
Reyes told News 5 it feels like her peace is being robbed at her home, and she said it’s devastating.
Just a few blocks away, Janire Mendez owns a food truck called El Malecon, and she also shared Blink camera video of an unfamiliar truck recently pulling up to her grease trap.
Mendez wasn’t available for an interview, but Reyes said it’s concerning, and it raises red flags after she said she experienced a similar situation and thought the workers were legit.
“The first time it happened to me, they were dumb enough to give me a phone number. The phone number, the area code that I looked up comes all the way (from) New York. I don’t know if these thieves are coming from out of state into small businesses around the area,” said Reyes.
Now, Reyes wants Akron Police to be more serious about her and Mendez’s concerns.
“For the Akron PD to take (a) very it’s something else that happens every day is something that we don’t need to continue,” said Reyes. “It’s things that we need to focus on because if we don’t focus on them, the community is just going to drop."
News 5 reached out to Akron Police, and they have yet to respond back to our request.
“I understand that there’s hard times, but it’s just disappointing,” said Reyes.
