Five liquor store robberies and several attempted robberies since New Year’s Eve have local merchants on edge.

Liquor store employees, managers and owners worry that a pattern established by the robber – hitting liquor stores in the early part of the month – will come into play this week, given the lucrative Fourth of July holiday.

People are scared, said Christian Walter, owner of Glass House Liquor, but that doesn’t mean they plan on becoming victims.

Preventive measures

Walter established a phone tree for liquor store employees. If one store is robbed, employees of that store will call three other stores, which in turn call three more stores. Walter’s hope is that the phone tree acts as an early warning system, allowing employees to move money from cash registers, lock doors and be prepared to notify the police.

“It comes down to the money you can replace, and the people you can’t,” said Walter, whose store was robbed on New Year’s Eve and again on April 9.

That might be the least drastic of the measures taken by merchants to foil the suspect, who is described as a black man between 5-foot-10 and 6 feet tall, weighing about 200 pounds. He usually wears a black bandanna over his face, a black cap and a black hooded sweatshirt.

Merchants on guard

From increased staffing to cutting hours and requiring customers to show identification upon entry, liquor store employees are hoping to thwart any attempted robberies.

Chris McKinney, a night manager at Haskell Liquors, said that he had begun closing the store early if he feels like a robbery might occur.

“If it doesn’t feel right, or if somebody’s sitting out there watching the place,” he said that he’d lock up.

Mandy Isaacs, who was held up at Harper Liquors, said employees at Harper Liquors and RiverRidge Liquors, where she also works, locked the front door during nighttime operating hours, while requiring patrons to show identification. That system thwarted an attempt by the robber several weeks ago, she said.

“Had I not implemented that rule, we would have been robbed,” she said.

Other stores are making sure multiple employees are working at the same time. More people at the front of the store might deter a robber, while other employees in the back of the store can call authorities in the event of a robbery.

Fears of accidents, guns

Keith Kielman, owner of KC’s Liquors, which was robbed May 10, said he had heard of merchants keeping weapons behind the counter. But he worries that the only way police will catch the bandit is after an accident involving gunplay.

“I think somebody’s going to do something stupid,” he said.

Having a gun may seem like a good way to deter burglars, he said, but things change in the heat of the moment: “Everybody thinks they’re Arnold Schwarzenegger until that moment.”

Isaacs said, “We just kind of have a feeling that he is not going to get caught until something bad happens.”

There are mixed feelings about how police are handling the case.

“What’s being done to stop it, I don’t know,” Kielman said. He said he’d heard of increased police patrols in the late evening when the robber had struck in the past.

Isaacs said she hoped for a larger undercover police presence, especially with the busy Independence Day holiday on Friday.

Walter, however, is confident police are doing all they can.

“We’re frustrated with the robber, but I don’t think the police can do much about it,” he said. “I know that the detectives are working hard.”