String of electric bike burglaries has Kakaako businesses on high alert

Reporter

In Kakaako, a string of burglaries has businesses on edge. Bike shop workers are gearing up to protect their stores - after thieves stole thousands of dollars in merchandise -- the most recent incident over the weekend.

HONOLULU (KITV4) -- In Kakaako, a string of burglaries has businesses on edge. Bike shop workers are gearing up to protect their stores - after thieves stole thousands of dollars in merchandise -- the most recent incident over the weekend.

Less than a month after moving to Kakaako, Ebikes Hawaii was hit early Sunday morning by masked men who took off with three electric dirt bikes and a high-end mountain bike.

"It's hard. We worked really hard to get set up here," said manager Ryan Dunn. "We were really hopeful, you know, it'd be this new neighborhood and new space."

Thieves jumped over the fence and broke through the glass door before taking off with more than $20,000 worth of e-bikes and motorcycles.

"It's a pretty big hit to lose that much product," he said.

And this is not the first time. A string of burglaries has businesses on edge.

"In my couple years here we had one break in our old shop in Kaimuki. Our Kapolei shop got hit three or four times," Dunn said.

Just around the block, thieves broke in three weeks ago at Boca Hawaii, which took a $30,000 hit. Since then, owners have put bars on all the windows and doors, installed hidden cameras, and put GPS systems on the bicycles so they can track the bikes if they're stolen.

"The world has changed, especially here in Hawaii," said Raul Boca, owner of Boca Hawaii. "We've seen that happen a lot around the Kakaako area and so we need to do what we need to do."

Ebikes Hawaii's also not taking any chances, beefing up security systems and "checking our processes to make sure that we're doing stuff properly and to protect our stuff the best we can," Dunn added.

Shop owners are offering rewards to get the bikes back.

Produced in partnership with the Economic Hardship Reporting Project.

Reporter

Kristen joined KITV4 in March 2021 after working for the past two decades as a newspaper reporter. Kristen's goal is to produce meaningful journalism that educates, enlightens and inspires to affect positive change in society.