CHARLESTON, SC NEWS - LIVE 5 WCSC Breaking News, Weather, SportsPolice helping businesses prepare for holiday crime
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NORTH CHARLESTON, SC (WCSC) - North Charleston police is reminding businesses what they can do to prevent from being targeted by thieves.
On Monday morning, Officers Lavar Simmons and Christopher Rabbitt visited several businesses in the West Montague Avenue area, near the Tanger Outlet mall.
"Want to go in here?" Rabbit asked Simmons.
"Yea, let's go in here right quick," Simmons said.
Camille's Sidewalk Café was first on their list.
"So you don't leave any doors open or anything?" Simmons asked the restaurant's manager.
"When it gets dark, that one is locked," the woman responded.
After checking, Simmons and Rabbitt handed out a check list of things businesses can do to lessen the probability of getting robbed.
"Who's your alarm company?" asked Simmons.
He said security should be at the top of the checklist.
In every store they visited, the officers checked for alarm systems and cameras.
They're important because they can help track down criminals, Simmons said.
Workers at a Chinese restaurant on International Boulevard thought they had cameras outside, but Simmons and Rabbitt discovered that was not the case.
Simmons went back inside and made the store's management aware.
"Around the holiday season, with a lot of burglaries and robberies that have been occurring we just want to give them our input on what they can do to protect their business," Simmons said.
The officers visited the Firehouse Subs, who were robbed last year in October.
"I'm looking at your lighting and your lighting seems to be pretty good," Simmons told one of the workers.
In addition to lighting, visibility is also important, Simmons said.
"When I say visibility I'm talking about lighting, proper adequate lighting -- making sure their windows are not covered with a lot of advertising," he added.
La Hacienda Mexican restaurant had the lighting issues covered.
But the store manager said the officers did remind him about keeping little cash around.
"It's quite easy for them to forget and we understand that. That's why we want to work well with them and work closely with them to ensure them that these problems can be addressed," Simmons said.
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