(Image: CHS)
Capitol Hill pot shop The Reef was targeted again overnight in an early Friday morning smash and grab burglary as a team of thieves tried to use a car to crash open the shop’s front door, leaving behind a wrecked and heavily damaged storefront.
The attempted heist is the latest in an ongoing wave of similar ripoffs targeting Seattle’s cannabis industry and businesses with ATMs across the city and one of multiple break-ins in recent years targeting the E Olive Way at Denny store. Friday’s collision to the Capitol Hill store was the most damaging yet.
Another vehicle was reported smashed into a pot shop less than an hour later in SoDo.
Police were called to the corner around 3:30 AM as multiple 911 callers reported a white sedan had smashed into the front of the store. According to East Precinct radio, callers reported a group dressed in black and carrying orange bags fled the scene in two SUVs, one black and one red.
Damage to the store was significant with the front door’s security gate partially smashed and the masonry wall left crumbled. It was not clear if the thieves were able to access the store through the resulting gap.
The car left at the scene smashed into the building was reported as a Hyundai Tucson.
Seattle Fire was called to help secure the building. There were no reported injuries at the scene. SPD reported the intersection of Summit and Denny just east of E Olive Way remained closed to traffic as of 7 AM.
Sidewalk bollards near the front entrance to The Reef installed last year after an October 2023 smash and grab may have helped prevent more significant damage.
Similar break-ins have plagued the Seattle area. In January, 15th Ave E pot shop Ruckus was also hit in a smash and grab as thieves target the businesses restricted to cash-only sales by federal regulations.
The targets have not been limited to cannabis shops. The clubhouse at Seattle’s Bill Wright Golf Complex at Jefferson Park remains under repair after a smash and grab burglary targeted golf equipment and its ATM.
$5 A MONTH TO HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE THIS SPRING
🌈🐣🌼🌷🌱🌳🌾🍀🍃🦔🐇🐝🐑🌞🌻
Subscribe to CHS to help us hire writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. To stay that way, we need you.
Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for $5 a month -- or choose your level of support 👍
It might be time for The Reef to move on from this location.
As someone living across the street, having to deal with their inconsiderate customers that double and triple park or that block crosswalk and view lines for pedestrians, now having to deal with the fallout of a second “crash & grab,” in less than 2 years, is just too much. The negatives of this business outweigh any positive contribution they may have once had for this part of the neighborhood.
Though it’s probably inevitable that they have to move, as the entrance looks structurally unsound and the whole building might need to come down.
Yay. Another blighted, uninhabited building in that area. Just what we need at one of the primary entrances to Capitol Hill,
Or we keep that status quo and have a crime magnet at one of the primary entrances to Capitol Hill. Just what we need. Yay!
The status quo? It happened twice. The last thing Capitol Hill needs is the influx of tech workers bringing the city down. They objectively do more harm than smash and grabs.
The “status quo” is The Reef staying and the crash and grabs continuing. Not the number of times it’s happened so far.
“Not the number of times it’s happened so far.”
I am not a scientist, but, I think “Second verse, same as the first” is the proper scientific analysis.
Well get used to it, because it’s not closing just because you want it to do so.
“The last thing Capitol Hill needs is the influx of tech workers bringing the city down”….mhhh, sorry to burst your bubble but that has already happened…
Nobody rams a coffee shop, thrift store and anywhere cash is not in piles next to anything on a peg board etc. you can steal.
I’d skip everything and head for the hash.
Also? They suck at security because it costs them money and insurance pays like a slot machine. Again, it’s all a manufactured crisis. Like housing and wages…That’s a whole other rant as we are all painfully familiar with…like now…lmao.
It honestly does not matter. Not one bit.
ANYWHERE we have people gathered? We need a security system that works. Like the planes. Can’t hijack a plane now. Why? Because the Homeland security said so. But now it’s cars and guns.
Cars we CAN easily figure it out. With proper security? There’s no chance of being the last business in WA. you’d want to or can steal from at all. Make it a drug crime felony and go to Sing Sing long time mamason. Actually REQUIRE an APPROVED security as set forth by the state, city, whatever. Even if cash disappeared? They’d just steal a Hyundai and get the weed and the ATM etc. etc. etc.
Also in that law? When you get robbed and the damage will take time? You find work for labor or pay them SOMETHING for lost wages. When you have to work 500 hours etc. before benefits? It matters. No pay? They will look for a job tomorrow because unenjoyment and being able to not freeze and starve eating your children as a last resort? It’s suddenly a priority. Entire empires have fallen over the issue of starvation and austerity. But mostly? Starvation. It becomes survival. Gangs hijack food from anywhere. Eggs are in vouge. Another manufactured crisis. Food monopolies. Too bad we have no competition. We will all work our entire lives and have nothing to show for it. But worse than the last 50 years. Fascism…25th amendment type shit. At some point? That shoe drops or we are screwed.
But when it’s simply the wild west in America? Well? Here we are. Vehicles used to perform terrorist acts.
This store has certain products that are very hard to find elsewhere, especially products high in CBG and THCV. I usually make it part of my capitol hill trip when I’m up there to stop in and pick something up, especially being so well located relatively close to the light rail. It will be a real shame and a loss for the neighborhood, at least from my perspective, if this store is gone – I generally don’t go shopping for much in capitol hill otherwise. I hope, if they do close here, that they do transfer some of this good inventory to their georgetown location.
I understand not wanting to live across from it – believe me, I live across from a Safeway in south seattle, so I get it. Still, stores have to be somewhere and it helps to have them close to other things. What else are you going to put there?
“What else are you going to put there?”
Literally anything else that fits the zoning. That spot was restaurant space for the longest time. It doesn’t HAVE to be a pot shop.. especially considering there’s another shop about a block and a half away. And while it’s a different sort of mind alteration, there are 5 bars and a coffee shop/bar on that one block stretch of Olive that The Reef shares (and two more bars on the next block).
I’m not saying I don’t want to live across from a pot shop. I’ve even come to grudgingly accept the inconsiderate folks who drive to this location and feel that anywhere they can pause the movement of their car is free game for parking. What I do have an issue with is that this store seems to be a target for a criminal element that’s willing to steal a car and destroy a part of a building to steal the goodies inside. This is after the business has taken multiple steps to deter theft.
So, yes, if they are going to be a constant target of escalating criminal violence, then the neighborly thing to do, given their residential proximity, would be to move operations elsewhere. Do I think that will happen? No, too much profit to be had. But as their neighbor, I’m going to speak out about these things.
Sounds like you have a problem with seattle drivers and not the reef…
“I’m not saying I don’t want to live across from a pot shop. I’ve even come to grudgingly accept the inconsiderate folks who drive to this location and feel that anywhere they can pause the movement of their car is free game for parking. “
CHR said this…How you got “Sounds like you have a problem with seattle drivers and not the reef…” Is beyond me.
CHR said the exact opposite of what you accused them of.
hello?
I have a problem with businesses that attract criminal behavior. Particularly when I live across the street from them.
Either the business needs to fix it so they aren’t an attractive target for criminals or they should relocate.
Or maybe the federal government should drop their pointless prohibition on cannabis, which would allow pot shops to use ordinary bank accounts, which would let their customers pay by card, so there would no longer be large piles of cash sitting around tempting violent criminals to cause problems.
Bingo. That was my first thought. That said, I’m sure Summit Market didn’t keep wads of cash on hand and they still got targeted.
Noooo…That can be repaired/restored nps. The issue is simply security. No attention to detail. Can’t use a debit card or credit card or paper check or nuthin’. It’s a manufactured crisis.
The alt right needs cover because they profit greatly and get power from taxes. But they can not say they support weed. The Christian Nationalists would crucify them. But it brings jobs right? It also gives them “crime ridden” shock news constantly so the “law and order” alt right Nazi’s can perpetrate a coup. Serve all the terms they want because facts will no longer matter. Data manipulation will matter.
If you want to know what these terrorists are up to? Listen to the accusations they place on the “libs, communist, socialist coastal elites”. They simply project. Project, deflect…Repeat. It’s a thin playbook so the uneducated can run the plays.
bro I hate right wingers as much as you do but I don’t think this is really about all that
It actually is. They refuse to allow banks to do business with pot shops. Keep it as an illegal substance etc.
It is used to jail people in states it’s illegal. Then the census counts the prisoners in Red states private prisons. AKA The Confederacy. Then the prisoners can not vote. However? The census DOES count prisoners. Meaning Red states have more house reps, more power, better roads and infrastructure than they deserve as well. Better schools. Bigger police depts. Cheap/slave labor for profits and so on.
Eliminate weed and the prison population takes a hit. Then It becomes a giant problem for the Nazi’s.
It’s all manufactured for a vicious cycle as opposed to a prosperous cycle. The whole thing is a very complex weave of rackets.
Kemp’s on 1st Ave got hit Thursday morning too
wow…he’s been hit a couple times.
so much waste and damage for a few grand worth of weed.
pretty clearly organized interstate crime (they sell it elsewhere)… a few months ago, I’d say the FBI is probably looking into it. Now… seems every weed store needs major bollards in a ring around it. after that the perps will probably steal a helicopter to get in.
I think it’s important for people to understand, it’s not about the weed. It’s about the ATMs and the cash. If we had SAFE banking reform and cannabis stores were allowed to use cards like normal stores, this wouldn’t be nearly as much of a problem. The problem is keeping large amounts of cash on site overnight. Normal stores take the cash to the bank. Cannabis stores aren’t allowed to use banks.
It’s also the products they sell. It’s like gas on fire.
Ya simply have to have proper infrastructure or not. Bullards that are simply bolted to the ground? It had to be a scam. BURY THEM!…I hope everyone heard me.
You 100% need to car proof these pot shops. What good is a 6K door if a car can demolish it? Get 6K worth of car stopping stuff. Get as much as possible and create layers of defense. These pot growing operations seem to skate by nps. It’s the pot shops and the easy to steal Korean Tin Lizzy things. Smash and grab is easy PZ.
👨🎤”well the weed industry is full of capitalist so they deserve it.”
-Anarchist-
Ain’t that the mood in Seattle now?
no one said it but you
In the UK, this is what they call bullocks. This is the exact opposite of the mood here, you should come visit some time.
no…it’s not…How so?
Sounds like an organized group of people hitting any store with an ATM. A “gang” if you will. If only there were some way to investigate and prevent crime by organized groups of people. I heard SPD used to have a “gang investigation unit” but it got disbanded as part of staffing shortages since 2020, when we definitely didn’t defund police, even though up to about 500 of them quit in a 2 year span and we have yet to really replace any of them.
Cops have never stopped smash and grabs. Ever
There’s like a handful of cops happened to be witness to an in progress in the history of criming.
No…we did not “Defund them” for a single penny. They quit. Period. Why? To protest Covid shots. Because the dept was under federal watch and they couldn’t abuse their authority anymore w/o getting caught.
Then when people soured on their violence and treachery? They whine and quiet quit because people no long “respect them”. Gee…Try to be a nurse or teacher? Cops are millionaires and are “bonus hopping” depts. Stay 2-3 years. Get 30K and move on. And those are the cops who quit here. Now that Covid is over and the feds are not breathing down their necks?
It’s a miracle!!!! We hired more than left for the first time this year. Mear months after a huge raise and back pay and bonuses. I am shocked I tell you! Shocked! The current council turned it around! Right? Or is it “The libs ruined the dept.”?
No, they did not turn it around. The feds did.
The libs didn’t ruin it. The cops did.
So you can say stuff. But the facts are clearly something else.
Thank you for that. My brother just retired from the force, and my nephew is a precinct captain, and they both mention the bonus situation as a huge reason for the younger guys to hop around working in a few cities/areas before deciding where to settle down.