Salt Lake City business hoping for help to solve a crime

SALT LAKE CITY — A Marmalade neighborhood business is hoping the public can help them catch a criminal, after saying they’ve been victimized by repeat burglaries. They aren’t the only business in their complex to report being hit by thieves recently.

Serving handmade plant-based proteins and meals to loyal customers, Vegan Daddy Meats on 300 West near 600 North is a small business reliant on community support.

Owner Adam Diener said they just celebrated their first year since opening, and that, “Salt Lake City’s awesome. Super supportive.”

Diener is now reaching out to ask for help solving a crime.

He explained how he arrived at work Thursday morning to find the business safe gone, and a flashlight left behind. Looking back at video surveillance, he could see that a man broke in through one of the doors Wednesday night around 10:30 p.m. and made his way into the back.

“He unbolted it and took the entire safe that I just had installed,” Diener said. Video shows the man leaving holding the safe, which Diener said had about $200 in cash inside.

He said he bought the safe recently as a preventative measure. “Because it happened before,” Diener explained, of being burglarized. “I’m like okay, well we’ll put it in the safe, where it’s safe.”

Diener described how, back in June, a burglar broke into Vegan Daddy Meats, which was also captured on surveillance. The video, which is in black and white because Diener said the lights were off, shows a man in the back room looking around.

The reason the cameras were installed for that June incident — Diener believes he was burglarized another time a few weeks prior. But he didn’t have cameras to prove what happened and said he didn’t report the incident to police because he thought maybe it was an employee.

After the second June burglary with the cameras, Diener said he began leaving all the lights on at night and purchased the bolted-down safe.

Now he’s been hit again.

“We lost, a couple grand, collectively,” he said. “It’s really detrimental to us. It’s hard.”

Next door at Uncle Hot Pot, owner Wen Xiang Huang had his own surveillance video, explaining that the restaurant was burglarized in late July.

Huang talked about the incident with employee Tammy Li translating.

“It was around 5 a.m. in the morning, and one thief came into our restaurant and broke into our cash register,” she said.

Several videos show a person wearing a hoodie walking through Uncle Hot Pot with a flashlight. The person steals the cash register, which Huang said had about $100.

He didn’t realize someone had broken in until Huang arrived for work that morning, explaining that police were already there.

“He was told that our store got broken into, along with the hair salon, and upstairs, the Pilates [studio],” Li said, translating for Huang.

Salt Lake City Police confirmed the two reported burglaries at Vegan Daddy Meats, saying they are still gathering information on the Wednesday night case. KSL TV inquired about the Uncle Hot Pot break-in and potential break-ins at the salon next door and the pilates studio upstairs but has not yet heard back.

Police said they responded to the building Thursday morning, but not originally for the Vegan Daddy Meats burglary. They said the salon called to report a burglary alarm, and officers determined no crime had occurred after speaking with the salon owner.

They took the call from Diener a few hours later.

Huang and Diener have both increased security measures, but Diener doesn’t want to wonder if this will happen again. He’s hoping someone will recognize the lone man captured on his surveillance cameras.

“I just really want to find out who did this,” he said. “It keeps me up at night.”