Royal Oak Neighborhood Party Store Targeted 3 Times

The owner of a neighborhood Royal Oak party store is ready to sell his business and leave the area after being held up at gunpoint last week – the third time his store has been targeted by thieves or vandals in six weeks.

“This store has been here 70 years,” said Gazmend Kishta, 46, of Clinton Township. He said he has owned the on Fourth Street between Campbell and the Interstate 75 service drive for about a year and a half and there has never been a problem there. He's been told there were no major problems even in all the years before he bought the store.

In the most recent incident, Kishta was robbed at gunpoint about 9:30 p.m. June 24. He described how a young man, about 20-23 years old, stole his night’s receipts.

“He had on a hood and mask and had a gun,” Kishta said. “He pointed his gun at me and told me to go to the register. I go to the register, I open it. He tells me to lie down on the floor, I lie down on the floor. And he left.”

Kishta was not injured and said the thief got away with about $900.

The thief was described as wearing dark pants, a gray hooded sweatshirt with thin white horizontal stripes, a patterned bandana covering his face and wearing light-colored gloves, according to a Royal Oak police report. The man used a small caliber black revolver with a thin barrel and pointed it at Kishta, demanding money, police said.

In a June 18 burglary, a man was seen about 5:30 a.m. on the store’s surveillance video using what looks like a crow bar to bust through the glass front door, grab the cash register and run off with it. Kishta said he lost about $200 from the register, plus the cost to fix the door and replace the register.

On May 13, someone broke out a back glass window of the store, which is nestled in between houses. “It was smashed with two bricks put together,” Kishta said. “The alarm went off.”

The June robbery and break-in were caught on the store’s surveillance camera, which police are examining as part of their investigation, Royal Oak police Lt. Tom Goad said. The incidents don’t appear to be related, but it is not known for sure.

Kishta doesn’t know why his store is being targeted, but worries about recent reports of crime in the city, such as the June 22 robbery of the Bank of America branch on 13 Mile Road, rash of and reports of .

“I don’t know if it’s the economy or an organization,” Kishta said. “I’m feeling like selling the business and go.”