If you can’t get a Subway sandwich after dark, blame the city’s crime rate.
The Subway at the corner of Girard Boulevard and Central Avenue has stopped accepting cash after 8 p.m., because it has been robbed twice since the beginning of the year, store owner Leticia Bernal said. Sandwiches can still be purchased by credit card at night.
“We stopped accepting cash after the second robbery, because it’s never worth it to put my customers and employees at risk,” she said. “We are concerned with the safety of customers and staff, and it’s never worth it for someone to get hurt over money.”
Bernal said the store was robbed on Jan. 15 and again on Feb. 12. She said neither robber was caught, even though the store is under 24-hour surveillance.
“The cops were never able to find the guys, even though we gave them the tape,” she said.
Night Manager Kenny Goodhart, who was present for the second robbery, said he called the police while the robber was still in the store.
“He knew I had a key to the register, so he gave me two minutes to go get it. I walked around the corner and called the cops right away and told them this guy was in the store with a gun,” he said. “They were trying to get a description of him when he came around the corner and started waving the gun in my face.”
Goodhart said the police showed up quickly, but they were unable to locate the perpetrator.
“The cops did a search like no other. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that many cops on the block,” he said. “A detective came and showed pictures (of possible suspects) to another employee who was here, but he couldn’t verify that it was the guy. He was wearing a mask.”
Goodhart said the first robber took around $2,000 from the store but the second one only got about $80. He said the robber pulled a gun on him at the second robbery.
“He walked straight through the door,” he said. “I didn’t snap what was happening at first — sometimes you don’t get it right away with something like that. It registered after a minute. He walked up to the register and pulled his shirt up and he had a gun.
“The other guy there working just opened up the register so he’d get the gun out of my face.”
Goodhart said he suspected that it might have been the same person who robbed the store twice.
UNM student Nathan Montano said the police aren’t doing enough to keep the area around the University safe.
“It’s obviously not safe, since it’s been robbed that many times. Maybe they need to hire private security or maybe a larger APD presence or involvement around the area would help,” he said. “I feel safe during the day. I wouldn’t like to catch myself walking around here at night, like if I lived in the dorms or something.”
Bernal said she hired an off-duty police officer to watch the store. She said she thinks the robberies may have started as a result of the closure of the Blockbuster store next door.
“We’ve never had an issue with robbery in the last decade, and I think that when Blockbuster was open and with the bright lights, it provided us some security,” she said.
Goodhart said he’s not sure why there were two robberies in such a short time, but he thinks the criminals might have been motivated by drug addiction.
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“We get kind of dead after a while, but this isn’t something we would expect,” he said. “Tweakers do what they do to get their cash, I guess.”
Goodhart said there’s been only one other incident of theft in the two years he’s been working there.
“We got robbed once by a midget,” he said. “He just jacked our tip jar. He must have been the fastest midget alive, though, because we couldn’t catch him. We ran outside and he was gone.”
