Sep. 26, 2023 By Bill Parry
Police from the 106th Precinct in Ozone Park are still looking for the crook who allegedly robbed a neighborhood smoke shop last week.
A young man entered the Zaza Exotics and Smoke store, located at 105-12 Cross Bay Blvd., at around 8:20 p.m. on the evening of Wednesday, Sept. 20, and jumped over a glass partition. He then threatened to use force against the 32-year-old employee behind the counter, police said.
The suspect then removed approximately $1,000 in cash from the register before running out of the smoke shop and fleeing the area on foot in an unknown direction, according to authorities. The store employee was not injured during the robbery.
The NYPD released a surveillance image of the suspect on Sept. 25. He has a dark complexion and is believed to be between 18 and 22 years old. He is approximately feet tall and 160 pounds and was last seen wearing a dark hooded sweatshirt and black sneakers.
Anyone with information is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 800-577-TIPS.
The 106th Precinct has reported 156 robberies so far in 2023, 12 fewer than the 168 cases reported at the same time last year, a decline of 7.1%, according to the most recent CompStat report.