‘Thief welfare’: After 2 break-ins, Betty Rae’s CEO spars on social media with KC mayor

A pair of break-ins at the Betty Rae’s Ice Cream shop in Kansas City’s River Market over the last month, including one early Sunday, have frustrated owner and chief executive officer Matt Shatto. He’s now openly mulling the future of the location, and is lobbing criticism toward Kansas City officials.

Shatto said in the break-in that occured around 3 a.m. Sunday, a man broke out a window with a rock and left with a safe and a couple thousand dollars in cash. In another break-in last month, a burglar entered through the location’s back door and stole cash, a cooler, peanuts and pints of ice cream.

The break-ins have a financial fallout, but they’ve also left Shatto thinking about the future of the River Market location, which is starting to see a thin pool of job applicants, he said.

“Like anything in a business owner’s mindset, you have to evaluate risk whenever you open a shop or maintain a shop or close a shop,” he said. “If we find that those barriers are too hard to overcome, then we have to question whether or not that’s the right place for us long-term.”

Shatto, who also owns the Shatto Milk Company, has been vocal in his criticism of city leadership lately. Over the last month, he and Mayor Quinton Lucas have sparred in public posts on LinkedIn, going back and forth over crime in the city.

In an interview with The Star this week, Shatto said there isn’t enough being done on public safety “across the board” in Kansas City. He blasted the recently established “Back to Business” grant fund program championed by Lucas, calling it “thief welfare” and an effort to generate good headlines. He said business owners need investment that will prevent crime and not just react to it.

“My intent is to shine a light on this in the River Market and not shy away from it,” Shatto added. “This is something that needs attention. It’s not a political issue, crime is not a political issue by any stretch of the imagination.”

City officials have said the recently established grant program is aimed at helping businesses recover from break-ins by paying for things like window and door repairs and prevention efforts like security cameras and alarm systems.

Lucas’s office said Tuesday that 184 business owners across the city signaled last month they had interest in the program, which has $325,000 available for distribution. Businesses can apply for up to $3,000 for repairs and up to $5,000 for security measures. The eligibility window runs from July 1, 2024, through July 31, 2025.

In a statement to The Star, Lucas spokesperson Jazzlyn Johnson said the mayor was deeply troubled by the second burglary at the Betty Rae’s location in just a few weeks, and said Lucas was “working closely with Kansas City’s state-appointed Board of Police Commissioners and (Police) Chief (Stacey) Graves to find ways to improve enforcement and increase overnight foot patrols in the River Market, Crossroads, and throughout the City.”

“Mayor Lucas continues to introduce public safety strategies that are within his power as mayor, including bringing back a downtown booking and holding facility , supporting small businesses through the Back to Business grant program, facilitating a state behavioral health facility, and helping create SAVE KC, a focused deterrence program aimed at reducing crime,” Johnson added.

According to information presented at the Kansas City police board’s meeting last month, crime in categories of property damage, shoplifting and stolen vehicles was on the rise compared to 2023, but other types of property crimes such as burglary, fraud and theft from cars and buildings were trending downwards.

Captain Jake Becchina, a spokesperson for the Kansas City Police Department, said investigators have been canvassing the River Market area for additional video and evidence but had not identified a person of interest as of Monday.

Becchina said that overall property crime has been trending down in that vicinity and across the city, but noted, “...that’s not a huge consolation to those that have experienced it. But this is why there are experienced detectives working hard on each of those break-ins to apprehend someone and bring them to justice for those victims.”

The Star’s Katie Moore contributed reporting to this story.