HOUSTON — Nicholas Protz is frustrated after thieves broke into both of his eyewear stores this week. Protz is the owner of Eye Elegance, a family-owned business in Houston. Inside the store, you can find a variety of options when it comes to eyewear, including pricy designer brands, like Cartier.
“Most of the collections we carry, you’re not going to find everywhere else,” Protz said.
The store also carries high-end brands and Protz said it’s something they’re well known for, but it’s not always a good thing.
“Unfortunately, it does bring the bad apples that want name and quality, but don't want to pay for,” Protz said. “This week, we had them smash that window at about 4:45 on Wednesday morning searching for glasses.”
Surveillance video shows the moment it happened from two different angles. One person smashes the glass and then walks away. The person comes back, this time with someone else, and they continue to break the glass and then push over a display and walk in.
Protz believes they were trying to get to one case in particular, the Cartier case in the center of the store.
“Starting price on most of the Cartier is going to be right around $1,100. You get into some of the noble materials, like the water buffalo horn, you quickly jump up into $2,800 to $4,000,” Protz said. “If you want to start customizing it with diamonds and stuff, you can get up into the $8,500 range.”
Protz said that because they’re no stranger to break-ins, they take precautions.
“Everything gets locked away,” Protz explained.
He even leaves the case unlocked and open to show nothing is there. But the thieves were still able to get their hands on Cartier cases.
“They’re going to be real surprised when they open and they're all empty, but even just the case itself is worth the money that we still have to replace,” Protz said.
The following day the store was hit again, this time at the Montrose location, but nothing was stolen.
“We don't carry the Cartier brand there and that's what I assume they were looking for, in particular,” Protz said. “So they looked around, did not find what they were looking for and left just a huge mess.”
Protz plans to continue operating normally as he waits to get the damage fixed.
“Minimum of four to six weeks just for the glass to get ordered and come in,” he said.
He said it’s hard to believe it won’t happen again.
“Wishful it would stop. Am I hopeful? Not really," he said.