The owners of a small family-run business in Gateshead face having to make a claim on their printers business insurance following an incident of vandalism that resulted in serious damage to the shopfront window.
Press report that the shopfront window was shattered by a BB gun, a fact which left the couple who own the shop “distraught” when they went into work only to be confronted with the damage.
As a result of the criminal damage, the owners will now have to replace the shop’s main windowpane and will also have to pay a printers business insurance excess.
It could hardly have been a worse beginning to the week for the shop’s owners. Shortly after waking on Monday they went downstairs from their above-shop flat to discover broken glass and a pellet still lodged in the shopfront’s double glazing.
“It is disgraceful. We are a small family-run business and this is our busiest time of year,” commented one of the owners.
“It is just horrendous. To think someone has used a weapon and not throwing a stone at our business, shooting at our business, is awful – we live just above the shop.”
The owners say that as well as the distress and shock, they have also had to spend a great deal of time speaking with their printers business insurance company as well as making calls to the police and contacting glaziers to arrange replacement windowpanes.
They have also decided that they will now need to install CCTV at the business to provide some security against a similar incident occurring again.
Police confirmed that they had been notified of the incident and that their investigations were ongoing.