A donut shop owner said that he fought back against a tip jar thief because he was fed up with criminals taking away his livelihood.
Niko Chea told KNBC-TV that he has operated Niko’s Donuts in Redondo Beach for more than three years and has been robbed five times already. The latest episode was a man trying to steal from his tip jar, but Chea said he refused to back down.
‘Niko just kicked his butt out and took the money back.’
“If someone was in need, I always give them a donut or two. I don’t mind that at all. But when you come and steal, that’s a whole different story,” Chea said.
Chea was fixing a sandwich when he saw the man grabbing money from the jar on his surveillance video. He rushed out to confront him.
The video that was obtained and published by KNBC on its YouTube channel shows him grab the money back from the man and shove him out of the shop as stunned bystanders watch.
“My first reaction was just to kind of lunge and get everything back from him,” he said.
“Get out of here, bro!” he yells on the video.
Chea said it was only a couple of dollars, but he took action to protect the business he had built up by working 11-hour days.
“I love this community,” he added. “Everybody that comes in here is almost like family.”
He says he has been robbed five times at the shop, including one time when people tried to break into his shop at 5:30 a.m. while he was still inside prepping the donuts on Dec. 30.
“If I didn’t yell, they would’ve come in,” he explained.
The robbers ran off with the cash register and a few hundred dollars in that incident.
Customers found out about the incident and have come in to the shop to tip Chea and show their support.
“When one person’s trying to make a business go, a small business, it just breaks my heart to see anybody try to take that away from them,” said Pam Sunder, a donut customer.
“It also scares me that we’ve got so many crazy people running around doing this kind of stuff, so I was really pleased to see that Niko just kicked his butt out and took the money back,” she added.
Niko’s Donuts can be found on 190th Street and on Instagram.
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