THE owner of a family-run tanning shop which was ram-raided in the early hours of Wednesday morning - causing thousands of pounds worth of damage in the process - says she won’t be kept down and has thanked the local community for their support.
Emily Faulkner, 21, runs Tan Lines in Darfield and has a close-knit team of five who help run the shop.
Having only just closed the shop for the night on Tuesday, Emily says her phone started going wild with notifications from the CCTV and when she looked she was shocked to see that a car had rammed into the frontage of the store, breaking in.
She told the Chronicle: “I’d just fallen asleep when my phone started going crazy.
“Our alarms are linked to my phone so every time a sensor goes off it sends a critical alert through.
“We just kept getting critical alert after critical alert.
“When I looked on my phone I could see the shop getting ram-raided, two men running in, going to the safe and running out.
“You’re just sat at home watching them and there’s nothing you can do.
“I got to the shop in about ten minutes and the police were already there.
“The shop was in a right mess.”
The thieves stole a safe and till drawer which had around £600 in it - but it’s the cost of replacing the frontage that Emily says will be the biggest expense.
She added: “There was around £600 there but we now need a full new shop front.
“Something like that is going to cost about £5,000.
“We’re a family-run business.
“It’s more the damage that they’ve done that’s cost us, more than what they’ve actually taken from the shop.”
Emily and those who work at the shop spent hours cleaning up in the early hours and managed to finally finish at 6am on Wednesday morning - and rather than closing for the day they decided to stay open and for the first two hours offer free sun beds.
She says that the support from the community has been overwhelming and says the shop will not close because of the incident.
She added: “We all get there just after it happened, so about 1.20am.
“We started cleaning up and we were finished for about 6am.
“There was no point staying shut - that’s what people wanted.
“They wanted to see us put down by it but it’ll take more than that.
“All the support we’ve had from customers has been lovely.
“We’ve had people bringing in flowers, doughnuts, drinks - it’s actually a bit overwhelming.
“It’s obviously still such a horrible thing to happen but knowing people value the business and the staff it does make you feel a real sense of community.”
A spokesperson for South Yorkshire Police said: “At 1.11am on Wednesday we were called to reports of an incident at Nanny Marr Road in Darfield.
“It is reported that two people in a vehicle drove into a business premises, causing damage, and stole a cash register and safe before leaving in the same vehicle. Officers have launched an investigation and enquiries are ongoing.
“If you have any information that could help with our investigation, please get in touch online or by calling 101, quoting incident number 30 of October 8.”
