SEATTLE — The management at Mighty-O Donuts in Seattle says the last couple of years have been difficult.
Julie Bundt, the Director of Operations, said crime has really surged in recent months.
"It just feels like we're just in a cycle of chaos unfortunately,” said Bundt.
The most recent incident happened Wednesday morning at their Ballard location. A woman walked in and pulled a knife on customers, according to Bundt.
"She's over here shouting and yelling,” said Bundt, describing the surveillance video of the incident.
Police were called and no one was hurt.
“It was shocking,” said owner Ryan Kellner. “I just kept thinking, oh no, not again."
Kellner, who has five Mighty-O Donuts locations, said in his 20 years of doing business, the last few years have really stood out.
"It is depressing. It's tough. Our Ballard store was robbed more than two times, and then my Green Lake store was robbed twice,” Kellner said. "Probably the biggest thing is taking care of our employees and customers.”
“If they feel uncomfortable coming to work, how are you going to carry out business,” he asked.
Kellner has temporarily closed his store at Second Avenue and Madison Street in Seattle and says the location remains closed partly because of crime in downtown.
"That's the store where one of my employees got punched in the face for trying to stop someone from stealing,” he said.
Problems like that on top of the pandemic are why he hasn't reopened that location yet. At other stores, he's had to make changes, like no longer accepting cash.
"That helps us so if you do get robbed, it's not a big loss,” said Kellner.
Kellner wants the city to take more action to help small businesses. He said that for the last couple of years, it has not felt like the city is doing enough.
However, recently Kellner has noticed cleanup efforts on downtown streets and hopes to see more of that in Seattle.