‘Like a family’: Customers rally around Kansas City businesses hit by criminals
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) - Outside Druid Dice, located on Main St. in the Crossroads, you can see a store closing banner.
A note on the front door reads, “This is becoming an all-too-common pattern in our community, and small businesses like ours are struggling to keep up with the damage, which is why we are closing the store.” The owner is currently looking for a new place to move to.
Inside the store, customers are browsing through items marked 50% off. For customers like Joel Blanchard, Druid Dice is much more than a store.
“People here at Druid Dice are like a family to me,” said Blanchard. “I’m in recovery, so this place gave me a safe place to go and broaden my social spectrum again after being addicted to drugs for so long.”
Blanchard and others come to Druid Dice to play card games like Magic the Gathering and One Piece.
“I bought a deck for my nephew so we can rebuild a bridge, and the game blew up,” said Blanchard. “My brother started playing, then my brother’s girlfriend started playing, and my mom is now playing. It’s become this fun family activity to do every week. We share new cards we get. It’s that comradery, and I wouldn’t have found out about One Piece without Druid Dice. It’s become a nice staple to my life. It’s fun. I have a really good time here.”
Blanchard says when he came to the store the other day and saw the front door was boarded up again, it hurt. He hopes the people who are breaking in are caught soon.
“The place I work was broken into, and the people were in and out in 30 minutes,” said Blanchard. “They even left and came back with a tool to get into the safe. I would encourage police to dig in and see if they can find a pattern of when they’re going to hit, how they are going to hit. I know Alec, the owner of Druid Dice, pretty well, and it just hurts because I know this hurts his family. I hope they are able to catch these people so everyone around here can feel safe again.”
On a note on the front door of Druid Dice, it was noted it wasn’t the only local business hit recently. It also mentioned Velo Garage and Tap House and Waterbird Coffee.
Velo Garage and Tap House celebrated 8 years in NKC last week. In that time, it’s experienced 3 break-ins. Owner Kiley Sutter shared security footage showing the most recent one from this past Wednesday. In the video, you can see the person who broke their window. Sutter says they didn’t make off with much.
“We don’t keep cash on site, so they just caused a lot of damage for basically nothing,” said Sutter. “When you get the alarm notification in the early morning it’s always something you dread. They cause several thousands of dollars’ worth of damage, and they may have gotten away with $3.50.”
Sutter is remaining positive; the bar and bike shop has since replaced the broken window and is preparing for a busy weekend.
“Snake Saturday is tomorrow,” said Sutter. “We’re going to open at 10 a.m. It’s going to be the first kick-off of spring. We have a lot of folks that show up, and it starts right here on the corner where our shop is on 14th and Swift, so we always get excited about this time of year.”
A GoFundMe for Druid Dice can be found HERE.
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