The owner of a bubble tea store has spoken out after thieves broke into the Orange City Centre early Thursday morning.
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Lee Bargwanna owns The Alley Lujiaoxiang Orange and said $600 was taken from the till, which was also damaged and will cost $200 to replace.
"They've just popped it, gotten in, congratulated themselves and made off with money," he said.
"They came from the food court so we weren't the only ones hit.
"I think they tried to jimmy all the other stuff open and I'm not sure if they were any lucky down there but they definitely got us."
Mr Bargwanna was alerted to the break in by his business partner, after staff saw what had happened.
"We're coming into our colder months so we struggle to make ends meet because we mainly sell colder drinks, so it makes it harder because our sales do go down," he added.
"Being $600 down doesn't help us, but it won't sink us, but someone's made off with money that isn't theirs, did some damage to my store so it feels terrible. It's just stuff we don't need at the moment."
To add salt to the wound, they won't be able to recover the money, at least for the foreseeable future.
"The coppers need to keep it for evidence and it's below our threshold for our excess on insurance, so it's a straight up loss," he said.
"Desperation I guess makes people do stupid things, but we have to suck it up and keep going. It just bloody sucks."
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