Candy Thieves Rob City Cafe 'On Daily Basis'

J'accuse!

​The owner and employees of the City Cafe on the City College campus have a message for the guys who have made a daily habit of stealing candy. First of all, your teeth are gonna rot. Second -- it's no more Mr. Nice Victimized Cafe Guys.

Cafe personnel filed a police report after a Nov. 30 incident in which two twentysomething black men grabbed two packs of M&Ms apiece, then outran the store's workers. "This is the 16th week of school and this has happened since Week 1," says counterman Chris Lloyd, who pegs the serial thieves as students. "Without exaggerating, this happens on a daily basis and it's not only this one guy." He estimates that hundreds of dollars worth of candy has been purloined.

The thieves have two methods:

One is the crude but effective grab 'n' go demonstrated on Nov. 30. The other, a specialty of the guy Lloyd blames for the latest theft, is to get in line with a candy bar, then surreptitiously hand it to an accomplice -- and end up telling the guy working the register "I don't have any candy! Check my pockets!"

"It's a candy handoff," says Lloyd.

The cafe is a private business owned by Greg Sical, and contracted by the school. This is money coming out of Sical's pocket -- and he's so sick of it he's spending some more money. He says he's putting in cameras and devising other ways of staving off the daily candy robberies.

"It's not going to be tolerated anymore," says Lloyd. "And if we press charges, chances are [the robbers] will be expelled."

Thieves, unlike the good folks who make Kit Kat, these put-upon entrepreneurs are not going to give you a break.

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