Little Chief’s back after five-month hiatus caused by break-in
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 03/11/2022 (1291 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
Five months after thieves rammed a truck into the store, tied an ATM to the vehicle and then ripped the machine from the building, leaving destruction behind, Little Chief’s Place Convenience Store is open once again.
The store and gas bar reopened Tuesday, and yesterday owner Jim Osiname was back behind the counter — or a new counter, at least, as the store has since been refurbished.
“It’s beautiful getting back to work,” said Osiname, who has owned the business for 21 years.
His ordeal began on June 6. At the time, police reported that around 4:14 a.m. that day, they responded to an alarm at the store located on Lyndale Drive, south of the Brandon Municipal Cemetery.
As they arrived on scene, officers saw that a truck — later discovered to have been stolen — had been backed into the front of the store, knocking out the building’s doors and glass windows. (Yesterday, Osiname said the truck had actually been driven right inside the store during the attempt to haul out the ATM.)
When the suspects noticed police, they sped off in the truck, dragging the ATM behind. The machine, however, fell off almost immediately when the truck turned south.
There was a short high-speed chase that ended when the truck missed a turn and got stuck in a creek bank. One suspect was arrested there, while a second ran but was eventually picked up in the area a few hours later.
Two men were charged in connection with the Little Chief’s Place break-in and investigators suspected they were involved in a string of other crimes, including a similar failed attempt to steal an ATM from the north-end Boston Pizza.
The suspects’ cases are still before the courts.
On Tuesday, Osiname estimated that there was more than $400,000 damage done to his business during the attempted ATM heist, and still counting.
“It was a mess in here,” he said.
Fortunately, he said, insurance covered most of the damage plus some of the lost wages for himself and his employees.
Osiname said he also made good of a bad situation by spending some of his own money to make improvements, such as a new kitchen that will allow him to sell food items that the store didn’t before, such as pizza and sandwiches.
The only complaint Osiname had was that the hard work he did to prepare his business for reopening was a little stressful following his lengthy layoff.
“After you’ve been laid off for five months, all the muscles relax … it’s a lot of work starting all over again.”
» ihitchen@brandonsun.com