Bar owner's wife yells at burglar over intercom amid string of West Side bar break-ins
CHICAGO — Several bars and restaurants in West Town and the Near West Side fell victim to break-ins early Tuesday morning.
Around 3:40 a.m., surveillance video at the Cobra Lounge showed a man in a hoodie wearing a mask throw a brick through the window of a rear patio door. Then — holding a flashlight — he moved behind the bar, breaking into the bar’s point of sale system before stealing two cash drawers and walking out.
It’s the second break-in at the Cobra Lounge this month.
Not far away, another bar suffered a similar fate.
“We got a call from the alarm company about 4 a.m. saying the motion sensor is going off,” said Declan Morgan, owner of the Noble Irishman Pub.
Morgan said a man smashed a window in front of his pub with a brick around 4:10 a.m.
Footage from inside the bar showed him wandering around, before going into the basement. Shortly thereafter, he came back upstairs behind the bar, Morgan’s wife yelling at him through two-way audio as the event unfolds.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she yells on security footage.
The offender ran without taking anything, but Morgan believes something he saw on the security footage points toward the man being a repeat offender.
“When we were watching the camera, we saw one guy in here. He was on his phone talking he had a guy outside spotting for him,” Morgan said. “We have a little store a block down the street, [someone] broke into that place. [It] looked like he was wearing the same north face jacket that [I saw] on April 14th.”
Twenty minutes after the break-in at the Irish Nobleman, a third establishment was hit; Tuman’s Tap and Grill.
Police have no one in custody, and would not comment on whether they believe these break-ins are connected to one another.
If you or someone you know has information that can help police make an arrest in the investigation of these incidents, CPD encourages you to file an anonymous tip online at cpdtip.com.
Source: WGN TV Chicago
