JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - The sense of security was shattered in San Marco early Wednesday morning when a vandal(s) smashed the windows of at least three businesses.
One of the incidents was captured on a security camera at The Bearded Pig BBQ.
“[The man] threw it once, it bounced off the window,” Chad Munsey, owner of The Bearded Pig, said. “And he threw it harder a second time and then he just…as soon as it smashed he just turned around and walked off.”
Munsey received a call around 3:30 a.m. from the alarm company and went down to the restaurant to survey the damage. He spent the morning cleaning up and boarding up the window and was able to open the restaurant at its normal time.
“There was glass everywhere, throughout the entire restaurant, all out front, a big gaping hole in the window,” Munsey said.
The Bearded Pig wasn’t the only target of overnight vandalism in San Marco. The San Marco Theatre and Grape & Grain Exchange were also hit.
Neither business had surveillance video immediately available to see whether the same man was responsible.
“It makes me a little nervous because I own a business here,” Racheal Melo, owner of Creative Grain Studio, said. Melo said she first heard about the vandalism at the Bearded Pig and then saw the damage to San Marco Theatre and Grape & Grain Exchange herself.
“San Marco is so amazing, and we all love San Marco and we all support San Marco, so it was just so sad to hear,” Melo said.
Munsey estimated the window repair would cost about $1,000. But he said it’s not the money that bothers him, it’s the principle that someone would do this.
“The fact that it happened to more than one [business] in one night was clearly just somebody on a mission to cause destruction,” Munsey said. “I would just like to find the person. It’s just…these type of acts need to not go unpunished.”
First Coast News reached out to JSO to see whether they believe the incidents are connected or were committed by the same person but has not yet received a response.