PLANTATION, Fla. – A South Florida business owner says a woman who was captured on surveillance video last week taking boxes that had just been delivered has returned the packages.
Keith Louis said he poured his heart into Coastal Provisions, based out of Plantation.
It’s a family business, so his son signed after receiving a delivery last Tuesday morning. Louis sells snacks, such as gourmet cookies and candy, to local luxury hotels.
Surveillance video shows the moment the woman took the 22 boxes and packed them into her blue car.
“It’s candies and treats and that’s how I survive. That’s my business,” Louis said.
According to Louis, the woman was identified and police advised him that he could either come to a formal agreement with the woman to be reimbursed for his losses or he could choose to press charges against her.
Louis said he agreed to allow her to return many of the boxes, although some of the product was missing, opened or ruined.
According to Louis, the woman claimed that she believed the boxes belonged to a business that used to be in the complex.
The woman’s attorney, Alejandra Jay, told Local 10 News in an email Wednesday that her client’s “duty on the property was to address unknown/abandoned boxes at this shopping center. Coastal Provisions is not a tenant and does not have a license to operate in this Shopping Center. Packages were removed from the common area for several reasons and placed in another location. After my client saw the news report, she immediately contacted the owner of the restaurant and returned the packages to the manager.”
Louis founded Coastal Provisions last year. He said the loss came just days away from him opening his very own warehouse.
Editor’s note: Louis initially reported the incident as a theft, not as a robbery as stated in our initial report.