Atlantic City small businesses suffer in wake of looting

ATLANTIC CITY — Sunday unfolded at first like any other weekend day for Marilyn Russo.

Regular customers came and went at the family-owned Russo’s Liquor Store at the corner of Florida and Pacific avenues in the Ducktown section of Atlantic City. The store closed uneventfully at 8 p.m.

“This block was quiet,” she said.

A block away on Atlantic Avenue, demonstrators for most of the day had marched peacefully against police brutality and the death of George Floyd in Minnesota.

But the demonstration turned ugly as Sunday wore on and the liquor store’s alarm company called Russo at her Atlantic City home about 11 p.m.

“I knew immediately what had happened,” she said.

Looters had broken into Russo’s. The family was still tallying up the damage Monday afternoon.

“It’s upsetting,” Russo said. “We’ve been in this neighborhood for over 45 years, serving the community. To have somebody to do this to us is disappointing.”

Much of the publicity about Sunday night’s looting and vandalism in Atlantic City centered on the national chain stores of Tanger Outlets The Walk.

But several nearby local businesses also were damaged.

Security cameras at Russo’s showed a man breaking the front glass door. In the 10 minutes it took police to arrive at the scene, several people entered the store. They stole bottles of alcohol and lottery tickets. They threw the cash register on the floor even though Russo had left it open to show there was no money in it. Vandals also broke a window, and bottles were strewn about the store.

Russo’s was closed Monday and reopened on Tuesday.

“People off the street felt like they were entitled to walk in, grab a bottle and walk back out,” Russo said. “They weren’t the original vandals, but they took advantage of the situation to just help themselves to something that doesn’t belong to them.”

While things were quiet at Russo’s for most of Sunday, businesses on Atlantic Avenue got a first-hand look at the peaceful protest and then could see it start to turn ugly.

Marco Torres of Torres Primo Pizza and Restaurant took no chances. He boarded up the family-owned restaurant Sunday evening and continued to make deliveries out the back of his store, which sustained no damage.

“I think we were the first ones to lock everything down,” he said. “Everybody was making fun of us, saying ‘Oh you guys are scared.’ We were just taking precautions.”

Torres said the protest took a turn for the worse after 5 p.m.

“That’s when the young people started coming out,” he said. “They came out like crazy. One of them was punching one of the cars (across the street) trying to break its windows.”

At Ole Food Market on Atlantic Avenue, owner Noures Salem said a man tried to break the glass front door of her store at about 9 p.m. She was able to quickly lock the door and took refuge in the back of the store. Salem said several local residents chased the man away. Ole was open Monday.

“It’s scary,” she said.

A couple of doors down from Ole, the glass on the front door of Cuts and Styles salon was also cracked. Many Atlantic Avenue businesses boarded up their windows with plywood Monday afternoon. Some businesses on the Boardwalk also boarded up their stores.

“We’re with you” and “Black Lives Matter” was written on the plywood at La Villita Farm Market on Atlantic Avenue.

Russo’s has been in business since 1973.

Marilyn’s husband Nick died last month. She said one thing Nick never wanted to do was install a pull-down iron gate on the store.

“He didn’t want to feel like we were in jail,” she said. “He felt this was his neighborhood.”

Sunday might just make Marilyn Russo change her mind.

“This forces me to rethink something my husband did not want to do,” she said. “I have to take the advice of people who know more than I do on how to prevent this from happening again. How do you keep people out when the store is closed?”