ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – An Uptown shop has been robbed twice at knifepoint in the middle of the day just this month. “We moved to Uptown kind of thinking ‘this is such a great opportunity of growth for us’… it is shocking that it happened,” said Co-owner of Old Barrel Tea Company, Bailey Riddle.
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Riddle said the Uptown location was robbed at knifepoint on April 1. The robber took $300 from the cash register and just this past Saturday they were robbed once again. “Both times the man was wearing a black face mask covering his face and again at knifepoint and scared our team pretty bad,” said Riddle.
Security footage from April 20 shows a man in the store seemingly acting like a customer, talking with the employee and looking at merchandise. However, that didn’t last long. Riddle said he pulled out a knife and told the employee to give him all of the money in the cash register. On Saturday, Riddle said the robber got away with more than $450.
The business has stores across New Mexico, Colorado, and Arizona. The Uptown store opened last October.
After the first robbery, they added more security cameras. Riddle hopes some of the new measures they are taking will help mitigate this problem. “Some of the things that we’re doing is we’re going cashless. We’re starting a group messaging system with our Uptown community so that we can share threats.”
Due to similarities, Riddle believes it could be the same person from both robberies. The Albuquerque Police Department told KRQE that the incident from Saturday is still an active case and is being investigated by their robbery unit.
