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Atlanta store may have to close due to constant burglaries - the owner can't afford another

Lamin Cham has owned his convenience store on the west side of Atlanta for 7 years. Over the weekend burglars broke in—the third time, he says, in the past 3 years.

ATLANTA — A break-in at a man’s store on Atlanta’s west side over the weekend may end up breaking him.

The owner told 11Alive this is the third time burglars have struck his convenience store in the past three years. This time, when they stole his merchandise, he said they all but destroyed his livelihood.

And he can’t figure out how they got into his store, or why they didn’t trip his security alarm when they broke in. It was late Saturday night or early Sunday morning. 

Security cameras show a team of masked burglars somehow getting inside Lamin Cham’s convenience store, then kicking down two locked interior doors, and ransacking the area behind the sales counter, grabbing all the merchandise they could--making several trips in and out -- plus taking rolls of lottery scratch-off tickets.

They broke in after Cham closed late Saturday night. The next morning, when Cham was getting ready to re-open he realized what had happened. 

“I said, ‘Oh my God, there is a break-in’," he explained.

Cham counts his losses at more than $30,000 

“Everything behind the counter,” he said.

He has owned Low-Low Mini Mart on James Jackson Parkway, NW, just north of Donald Lee Hollowell Parkway, for seven years.

He ruled out any chance that it might have been an inside job because he said it’s a family-run business with the whole family trying for years, he said, to serve the surrounding community in a troubled area.

He’s tried to secure his small store inside a fortress, but burglars keep finding ways to get inside. And he said it breaks his heart for his customers.

“Eighty percent of my customers are old folks. And they love it, and I love my customers.”

But he can’t buy insurance, anymore; he said the policies now cost more than he can afford because of the crime. And he said he definitely can’t absorb this loss of more than $30,000.

“I may have to sell the business or walk away from it,” he said, “because it’s just frustrating, all the hard work just disappears in, you know, a few minutes.”

11Alive News is working to find out if the Georgia Lottery Corporation is able to track the batch of stolen scratch-off tickets to see if anyone tries to cash in any of them, and where.

And Cham is counting on Atlanta Police to help him find out who the burglars are. He is offering a reward in the case of $1,000 - all he can afford.

Beyond that, he said he just wishes he could figure out a way to stay in business, there, for the people of the community who depend on him. 

People, he said, he loves.

He’s asking anyone with information to call 911 and contact Atlanta Police.

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