OCOEE, Fla. – Negril Jamaican restaurant in Ocoee was up and running Wednesday afternoon, despite a burglary earlier that morning.
Police said someone broke into the restaurant around 4 a.m. Wednesday.
"In this particular case, the business owner lost $100, however, they accrued $500 worth of damage for the person trying to break in," Ocoee Police Deputy Chief Stephen McCosker said.
After the break-in, police put a message on their Facebook page asking business owners to empty their cash registers each night and leave them open.
"It's a good indication that someone made a conscious decision to indicate that there's no money there," McCosker said. "We definitely think it will deter them, because some thieves actually do case out their location prior to going ahead and committing the actual crime."
News 6 spoke to employees at a business nearby.
They said they didn't know about the burglary and said they'll be taking their cash with them at night.
"Any time, whether it be a business or homeowner, any time that we have the opportunity to reduce the opportunity of crime, then what we do is we reduce the time of victimization. So, it's very important to do everything we can to reduce opportunity," McCosker said.
The stolen register was found less than a mile away in a Walmart dumpster by the police station.
The restaurant's alarm company is looking through surveillance video to help determine who broke in.