KANSAS CITY, MO (KCTV) -
A business owner is trying to figure out how to protect her business after vandals hit the coin laundry and dry cleaning company several times.
Vandals continue to damage property at a neighborhood dry cleaning business, but it's the neighbors who keep putting the pieces back together again.
Janie Phoenix is 82 years old. She knows fabrics, cleaning fabrics and sewing fabrics. But she doesn't know who's been vandalizing her dry cleaning and laundry business located at 73rd Street and Troost Avenue.
Just a few days ago, someone kicked in the front door. It's the second time in six months the business has been vandalized or ransacked, and last year she was burglarized. Phoenix said the vandals have broken windows, ransacked the place and spray painted the walls.
"Before that, five or six times before that," Phoenix said of all the crime to her business.
Speed Queen Fabric Care Center has been on the block nearly 40 years, but what Phoenix spends on recovery she said takes away from her business.
"At the present time business is slow, and I don't have extra revenue to keep replacing the glass that's broken," she said.
"We call her Mama Phoenix around here. I've known her since I was a kid," said Mark Byrd, a neighbor and customer of the business.
Byrd, a local businessman, volunteered to help with repairs, but the repeated incidents are becoming costly.
"It's about $742 for the glass door," he said.
He's hoping neighbors will keep an eye out for the vandals and put back into the business what Mama Phoenix has put into the neighborhood.
"Come in and do some painting. She needs a security system, she needs help and we need to protect her and keep her safe," Byrd said of the woman and business he considers a staple in the community.
The neighbors and owner hope police catch the culprits soon because they could run the woman out of business.
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