LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — Copper thieves continue to run rampant across the valley, striking the popular Arts District pizza shop Good Pie over Labor Day weekend.
The owner of the shop, Vincent Rotolo, said when his crew arrived at work Tuesday morning, they noticed the walk-in cooler was warm and a lot of the food had gone bad.
"We found that our walk-in cooler was at over 60 degrees. All the product in there was kind of spoiled and really had a detrimental effect on our dough," Rotolo said.
Rotolo said they called an expert to go and take a look at the issue, and that's when they found out that someone managed to get on his roof ---- possibly by climbing over the wall behind his business and use a pipe as a ladder— and break into the A/C unit that keeps his walk-in cooler cold and steal the copper wire.
"They open the compressor up, they had tools, they knew what they were doing. They removed some of the copper that has some kind of a street value," Rotolo said.
WATCH: Earlier this year, Commissioner Tick Segerblom spoke about the efforts being made to deter copper wire thefts.
Rotolo said the suspect was not able to get away with much copper because he believes someone scared them off. However, the thief managed to leave behind roughly $10,000 in damaged equipment and food.
While the A/C was fixed, he said they were forced to close for roughly five hours on Tuesday.
"Throughout the day, over 60 people came here for pizza and were turned away," Rotolo said. "We are going to prepare to open tonight (Tuesday) and it's a blessing that we are able to recover so quickly, but other businesses are not so lucky."
He said this is not the first time businesses in the area have been hit by copper wire thieves.
He claims at least seven other small shops have recently been impacted, and he's now urging city leaders to step up and help.
"It's incredibly frustrating to know that there's this like copper criminal syndicate out there targeting small businesses," Rotolo said. "We just need to create laws that are going to stop these criminals from having easy access to selling what they're stealing, which is the copper."
Meanwhile, Rotolo said that he installed a protective cage over the unit and installed surveillance cameras on top of his roof.
Rotolo also reached out to Metro officers on Tuesday, and they told him they are "dedicated to solving" the copper theft that's been plaguing our valley.
