Chicago Dealership Owner Calls for Crackdown after Smash-and-Grab Looters Strike in Broad Daylight

The owner of a high-end Chicago car dealership is calling on city officials to crack down on smash-and-grab burglaries after his dealership was targeted in a robbery on Saturday.

Two people reportedly robbed the Gold Coast Auto Gallery in Chicago’s Near North Side, with owner Joe Perillo saying the thieves took eight luxury watches worth over $1 million. Security footage showed one man standing by the door of the dealership with a gun, while another smashed a glass case in the store.

Ten customers were inside the store at the time, including children.

“This happened in broad daylight on Saturday,” Perillo told Fox & Friends on Monday. “And they have people come and break into your store while there are customers shopping and there are children in there.”

Perillo called on Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Cook County district attorney Kim Foxx to crack down on robberies in the city.

“It’s only a fool who keeps doing things the same way and expects different results,” Perillo told a local CBS affiliate on Saturday. “If the Mayor and Kim Foxx don’t do anything to get control of this, it’s not going to get better. It’s going to get worse.”

Chicago police issued an alert to businesses on November 26 following a series of smash-and-grab robberies that took place over the course of the month. Meanwhile, Lightfoot has she is “disappointed” that businesses are not doing enough to protect their storefronts.

“We still have retailers that won’t institute plans like having security officers in their stores, making sure that they’ve got cameras that are actually operational, locking up their merchandise at night, chaining high-end bags,” Lightfoot said at the University of Illinois in Chicago last week. “These purses can be something that is attracting a lot of organized retail theft units.”

A rise in smash-and-grab robberies has been reported across the country, with Best Buy CEO Corie Barry saying the rise has hurt profits.