Betty Rae’s owner calls out Mayor Lucas, Kansas City following business break-in

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A Kansas City business owner is blaming the city and Mayor Quinton Lucas after his business was broken into overnight.

Matt Shatto, who owns Betty Rae’s Ice Cream, posted on social media on Wednesday.

In a message to Lucas he said, “your city is the only one on a daily basis where we wonder if our staff is going to be safe and our assets are protected.”

Shatto goes on to claim despite paying taxes for public safety, “we are not safe in public.” Click here to read his entire LinkedIn post .

Betty Rae’s stores shared video of a recent break-in on Wednesday . a thief stole cash, ice cream and peanuts from Betty Raes. But the owner hopes City leaders don’t consider crimes like these to be small peanuts.

“Money can be replaced what I can’t replace is my staff now comes to work and worries about things like that when I hire people I now have to get over that burden no the River Market is a very safe place,” Shatto said.

Lucas responded to Shatto’s post saying “very sorry to hear about your business and the break in you experienced. While I do feel support for businesses victimized is worthwhile, I’ll point you to our work this week to re-establish holding space for up to 144 arrestees. (sic)

“That’s probably years down the road not tomorrow and we are looking at a today problem,” Shatto said of the idea to add downtown holding cells and beds on upper floors of Kansas City Police Headquarters.

Thursday, the city council will also consider a measure backed by the mayor allocating grant funding to help businesses make repairs after break ins or provide security upgrades.

The River Market has been a target for overnight thieves this month. Donutology, right next door, and Enzo, a block over, both experienced break-ins last week. Shatto questioned publicly Wednesday why police haven’t stepped up patrols in the area.

“It would be nice to have that formal presence for obvious reasons why that doesn’t occur I’m not sure. That’s one of the reasons I reached out to the Mayor with what’s being done,” he said.

The mayor offered several more responses throughout the evening saying he “recognizes the very real concerns our community faces.” But he added he thinks detention is a part of the solution and it would get Kansas City to an all-time high of 419 spaces for arrestees.

“I would hope that he would use those leadership skills to bring the team together in order to make the change necessary to make the people that are on these streets and the business owners and their assets protected,” Shatto said.

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