Thief Creeps Into Coney Island Candy Shop

On December 21, a historic Coney Island candy shop was burglarized in the middle of the night by a creep with a taste for candy.

Peter Agrapides, the owner of Williams Candy since the 1980’s, says that whatever cash the crook was able to procure from the store during the off-season wouldn’t come close to the destruction he left behind  – including over $1,000 worth of damage to registers which contained just $400.

The exhaust fan that was damaged during the thief’s entry would also needs to be replaced before the arrival of warm weather, in order to prevent the store’s wares from melting away.

The sweet shop, which has existed on Surf Avenue since the 1930’s, makes ends meet during the slow winter months by supplying candy – much of which is made on the premises – to events throughout the tri-state area.

“If you see cotton candy or jelly apples at any kind of function, all probabilities, it’s us,” Peter Agrapides Sr., 76, told the New York Times.

Agrapides thinks the burglar, who was caught on the store’s surveillance camera, may have been a junkie seeking a sugar fix. When asked by reporters if the thief might have been seeking to steal some holiday candy for his children, he responded that a family man would not need to resort to breaking and entering into his store for help.

“He’s not a family man,” he said. “If he came in here and said, ‘Give me $20 for my family,’ I’d give it to him.”