NYC café owner mocked during on-camera clash with brazen vandals: They know 'there are no consequences'
A New York City café owner is calling for more consequences to deter crime after being mocked by vandals while he recorded them spraying graffiti on his outdoor dining shed.
"They just targeted me, and they could not take anything seriously when I was confronting them," Kaiser Richter, the owner of Flowers Café in Lower Manhattan, told "Fox & Friends First" Wednesday.
Richter, who recorded the confrontation, said the two criminals laughed at his threats to forward the footage to police and tried to justify their actions by saying the shed looked "ridiculous."
The mocking began when he told the pair he paid $16,000 to get the shed looking the way it did.
"16K? This guy didn’t sand it, he didn’t sand it, dude!" one replied while pointing at the walls. "It’s f--king terrible!" he added.
"They were trying to explain that they are making it look more beautiful than before," Richter said, noting the vandals said they would come back and tag the whole area by the end of August.
The two grinned as they walked away, leaving the café's orange interior and turquoise trimmings marred by black spray paint. Richter speculated it could take approximately $200 to paint over the mess, but time – and the loss of customers – are weightier factors as rain delayed the project's completion and customers cannot sit in the area until the paint dries.
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Richter handed his recording over to police, but told Fox News that the effort yielded nothing. He feels that criminals in the Big Apple have been emboldened by little evidence that they'll face consequences for their actions.
"I do believe that if we had more consequences, people would avoid doing such a thing like what they did… They already know there are no consequences," he said, reflecting on their mockery and laughter.
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"I called the cops. They were there after five minutes, but nothing happened. They told me I can pick up the report after two days. I went to the police station after four days, and the report was not filed. They could not find anything regarding the report number," he added.
A special task force against vandalism and graffiti is looking for the suspects, he said.