A group of thieves left nearly empty-handed after breaking into Mitchell’s Ice Cream early Friday morning, in the latest in a recent series of burglaries or break-in attempts at the intersection of the Mission District, Noe Valley, and Bernal Heights.
The Rock Bar and Cafe Seventy8, two other longtime businesses within a block of the ice cream parlor, have also seen a burglary and attempted burglary in recent weeks.
Mitchell’s manager Marvin Gonzalez said the five perpetrators, who arrived in two cars just before 3 a.m. on Friday, looked young and weren’t professional burglars, but he surmises that the break-in was planned: “You come in with bolt cutters, you scoped the place out.”
They didn’t scope it out very well, though. The bolt cutters couldn’t break the chain on the front door, and the burglars instead used the bolt cutters to smash in the front window and hop inside.
In the end, Gonzalez said the thieves made off with one empty cash register and a bag of cookies. Repairing the window, he said, will cost about $5,000, but the shop has insurance.
While break-ins are not uncommon in San Francisco, and the shop is used to the occasional external damage, Gonzalez said this was the first time in his 24 years working at the location that the store was broken into.
“Who would break into an ice cream shop?” asked Gonzalez. He said the cash registers are kept empty, and the thieves were unable to access the safe — but most customers use a debit or credit card anyway.
The store installed plywood in the smashed window and opened as usual on Friday. At opening time on Monday morning, the store was busy with customers coming in and out, and contractors taking measurements to replace the wooden board that was in the window through the weekend.
Typically, Gonzalez said his ice cream makers come in at 3 a.m., but he had delayed their start time that day because the store was out of ice-cream mix.
“I’m glad no one got hurt, no one was inside,” Gonzalez said. “My first worker arrived maybe 15 minutes after they left. So he was already on his way to work.”
Overall, reported burglaries have dropped 18 percent this year as compared to last year, while other property crimes have also dropped, according to the San Francisco Police Department’s crime dashboard.
But the businesses around 29th Street have not been immune to trouble.
On July 23, neighborhood watering hole the Rock Bar — perhaps 50 yards from Mitchell’s — was broken into. Burglars stole a cash register, a safe and liquor, and also trashed the bar, according to a GoFundMe started by a neighbor. The owner estimated losses and damages of about $15,000.
Neighbors have reported multiple break-ins at Urbana cannabis dispensary across the street, though a manager there declined to comment for this article.
And, across the street from the bar and the dispensary, Cafe Seventy8 experienced an attempted break-in early in the morning on Friday, Aug. 2, just 15 minutes before the cafe was set to open at 6 a.m. Surveillance camera footage reviewed by Mission Local shows a tall, well-built figure in dark clothing lingering around the cafe’s large windows before suddenly smashing one of them. Owner Katie Higgins said police told her the suspect used a special hammer for breaking glass.
Since the cafe has a glass-break sensor, however, the alarm went off and the person immediately left. Moments later, Higgins’ wife arrived to blaring sirens at the store.
The cafe’s large windows, which span one side of the corner building, are “a great thing to have; it’s also just a major vulnerability,” said Higgins, who has owned the cafe with her wife for 16 years.
Higgins and her wife have tried various methods to prevent break-ins. They removed the ATM on advice from the police after the cafe began experiencing more burglary attempts late last year. Another person tried to break in with a crowbar, so they installed covers on their locks.
The cafe’s windows have a protective film to deter graffiti on the outside of the glass, as well as another layer on the inside, which slows the process of breaking the glass to enter the building. They got an estimate for metal window gates, Higgins said, but it was estimated to cost a prohibitively expensive $26,000.
For now, Higgins said she will use the $2,000 graffiti grant from the city, as she does every year, to help cover the $1,000 to repair the film, $1,000 to replace the window, and $750 for the particle board that secured the window during the interim.
“We’ve never, knock on wood, never had anybody get in the space,” Higgins said. Mid-sentence, she stepped over to her nearby parklet to rap her knuckles on it.
I’ll keep saying this forever: There are no police on the streets after 9 p.m. (in Mission/Noe/Castro – https://missionlocal.org/2023/01/police-bike-lane-future-valencia-street/ ) With no conceivable threat of being caught in the act, there’s no reason for thieves not to take their shot.
Oh my goodness!! It was never like that 40yrs or more. S.F. especially the mission district, would be flooded with police officers all the time. Donut shops were loaded with them at night. They’d be walking from one end of mission to the end of Mission/Daly City. It hasn’t changed in Daly City,ca police are at your finger tips. It’s time ,for S.F. to vote more serious, and stop falling for the lies, of temporary wannabes.
SFPD has never been walking from one end of Mission St. to the other- they’ve been zipping by in squad cars since forever.. I cant tell if this is parody or not, in which case: well done? Looking back to the 80’s as a time of safety and law and order in the Mission takes some impressive rose colored glasses. And donut shops? According to SFPD: the epicenter of crime. https://www.foundsf.org/index.php?title=The_Epicenter_of_Crime:_The_Hunt%E2%80%99s_Donuts_Story(RIP Hunts Donuts)
If you wanted to find a cop, they were hanging out in the donut shop at, what, 23d and Mission?
Cops don’t prevent or solve crimes, Diane. That’s been known for decades. And a lot of things were different 40 years ago (hint: think about employment rates, wages, quality of schools, cost of housing, etc.)
https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/police-are-not-primarily-crime-fighters-according-data-2022-11-02/
https://scholar.lib.vt.edu/VA-news/ROA-Times/issues/1994/rt9405/940502/05030001.htm
Also, Keiko’s Cafe down on Mission towards Silver was recently broken into as well.
I can’t believe the thieves didn’t stop once they ran all the big chain stores out of town! I thought they were doing this out of a noble, bourgeois sense of justice, not because they’re anti-social!
“Repairing the window, he said, will cost about $5,000, but the shop has insurance.” Let’s hope it remains that one instance, lest they’d find out the hard way how their policy’s getting dropped.
Progressives: We have too many police! We need more community workers to help the many poor people struggling on the streets. And all police are evil.
Also progressives: Somebody broke into my favorite shop! Where were the police?!
Cops don’t solve or prevent crime, Cindy. They’re really good at beating people up and killing them though.
Mitchell’s ice cream has been in the Valley for over 30yrs or more. That was always my go to spot every week with my children and church members. There was never any trouble like what is happening these days. It’s time for the D A. And Mayor, to put more strict policies on criminals. Enough is enough. At this rate of brake ins, S F. Will turn into a ghost town. It’s time for elected officials to get more harass with crime.
For the business mentioned within this article and who might be reading this story, it must be of some comfort to have the popular mantra of the day “crime is down” reinforced yet again.
All of us should grateful for this downward trend from a super insane crime level to just a reasonably insane crime level.
I feel better already.
If the “SFPD is understaffed” claim is true, then we’d see partial policing effectiveness at current staffing levels, but we do not.
SFPD are little more than an expensive security blanket for nervous, scared white people and do not prevent neither do they solve crimes such as this.
But when it comes time for the Dolores Hill Bomb, or a woman crossing the street against a red light, SFPD are right on it, begging serial civil rights lawsuits that the taxpayer, not the SFPD or officers are on the hook for.