Police in Alliston are investigating a third armed robbery in the town in just 10 days.
The FastCash store had just opened on Victoria Street in Alliston this morning when a man armed with a knife walked in, confronted the clerk, and then fled with money.
Arne Kulge runs a shop a few doors down and saw the officers’ response first hand.
“From that window we saw the SWAT team pull in, like six or eight guys pulled out their guns and their machine guns and they walked into the store…” he says.
He says this robbery hits a little too close to home and makes him want to take action to protect himself and his store.
“We want to put an alarm system in now because people are going in and trying to rob stores. That's a concern,” he says.
This is the third armed robbery that's happened in Alliston in the past 10 days. This Husky Gas Bar was robbed last week and again on Sunday. In both cases the suspect used a knife.
OPP Const. Paul Nancekivell says “it's too early to tell” whether the cases are connected but he hopes “in the next couple of days we'll see if we can tie it together but we are not sure at this point.”
The crimes are a shock to the small community.
“I think in small communities you are probably used to leaving your doors unlocked and you wouldn't do that anymore,” says Tina Vlaar. “Yeah it would be too frightening for sure.”
Police say they hope to have more answers soon.
“We've had detectives up and down the street today pounding the pavement doing old fashion police work trying to solve this as best as we can,” says Nancekivell.
Police are not releasing the description of the man because they don't want to tip him off. They plan to canvass well into the night and will release more details when they can.
