SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — The crowd rushed into Tony’s Delicatessen grabbing as much as they could fit in their arms and even filling backpacks. Adding salt to the wound, looters could be heard joking about it on cellphone video.
It all came at the expense of Elias Silhi, who has owned Tony’s Delicatessen for nearly 30 years. It has been four weeks since the looting and Silhi is still getting estimates on all the damage.
“It was just like a bomb went through the place, like a war zone,” said Silhi.
Now, it’s the waiting game to replace everything stolen and fix everything broken.
“My family is devastated. We never thought something like this would happen,” said Silhi.
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Roy Springer, the owner of Capital City Glass & Mirror, is one of many helping businesses piece things back together.
“It was like devastation I hope I never see again,” said Springer.
Like many local glass repair companies, he’s swamped.
“There’s a lot of specialty glass that you just can’t go down to your local wholesaler and get. Some things take a week, two weeks and even longer,” said Springer.
For Silhi, time is all he has. After three decades as a local business owner, he’s determined to get back on his feet.
“I don’t know what they got out of it by destroying the whole place. They could’ve stole whatever they wanted but left the place intact, it would’ve been easier to get back in business again,” said Silhi.
Silhi says it could be two months before he’s able to reopen.
