CINCINNATI — On Saturday night at Curve Connection in Northside, Inglesh Hughes celebrated the business' opening with a sip-and-shop event for her customers. When she returned to the business Sunday, every window in her store front was shattered.
"He actually took a brick and just bashed it along the entire each piece of glass, but didn't take a thing out of the store," said Hughes.
Police have arrested and charged a man for the vandalism, but in Roselawn, Yolanda Snatcher hasn't been so lucky. She's only just finished fixing the front door and window of her waist trainer and shape-wear shop, My Body Snatcher, after her business was hit by vandalism, too.
"It looks like they tried to shatter the side or side window and they couldn't do that. There was a mark there, but then the whole front door shattered, so then you know it's glass everywhere," she said.
Snatcher's dealing with the issue for the second time in just three months. She called police and reported the damage, but no one has been arrested or charged yet. She said online she's seen reports of other break-in attempts at other small businesses.
"When we have something like this, it takes away from your day and takes away from the spirit," she said. "You have to deal with something that's negative, why did this happen, trying to figure out who it is. It's not progressive for the business. It's not. It's not healthy."
Both women have stepped up their security systems and purchased better cameras, but said that in the middle of a pandemic they wish they were focusing on their business and not acts of vandalism.
Police have not said whether there is any connection between the two events or any other attempted break-ins at local businesses, or expressed any possible motive for the damaged stores, but Hughes and Snatcher are concerned.
"So far, everybody that I've heard about, it's been Black women-owned businesses, and if this is like a target type of thing, then that's bananas to me, like, why? The struggle is real enough," said Hughes.
As both sweep the broken glass and work to repair their facades, Hughes said the entire thing is emotionally difficult after pouring everything she had into creating a local business.
"It's disheartening, it's disheartening," she said. "Like, this is my baby. I put everything into this, like all of my time, all of my energy, all of my effort, and it's just disheartening to see somebody so senselessly just, you know, damage my baby."
