KENT, Wash. — Haizar Nassir has been running Kent’s Byblos Mediterranean Market for about a year and a half. The market serves a critical need for the city’s Arabic community, he says, and customers with ties from across the Middle East are able to pick up a little reminder of home.
“A lot of people come here they say, 'Oh, we’ve been looking for this stuff!'” he said.
However, the market relies on the internet for many of its functions, from taking sales to running the security cameras. So, when the market lost internet access on Thursday, Nassir said it was a big deal.
“When we opened up the store, when we saw the internet is down…I was like, we’re going to have a really hard time today,” he said.
According to Comcast, a cable wire was vandalized, cutting service just before 5 a.m. Thursday morning and leaving more than 2,000 customers without internet access.
Service wouldn’t be restored until 3 a.m. Friday morning.
Nassir said the outage cost him a lot of business because many of his customers don’t carry cash on hand. Customers had to either leave or take food without paying.
“Some of them don’t understand and say, 'go get internet!' We do have Internet, but it’s down,” he explained. “We had a lot of leftover food yesterday, because … it’s the end of the day and lot of people don’t have cash.”
Nassir said this isn’t the first time his shop has lost internet access, and hopes Comcast can do more to provide reliable service.
He also said that after 15 years of living in Kent, he’s noticed an increased police presence and wonders if Kent Police Department officers will be able to track down the vandals.
“Two months ago, two shootings happened at the same time, one in this place, and one in the plaza across the street. Two shootings! So sometimes, it’s really hard for them to catch everything,” he said. “I think they’re doing their job, but it’s so messy here.”
KING 5 reached out Kent police to learn more about what’s being done to catch the vandals and has not yet heard back.