MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A small business owner is heartbroken after she said video surveillance shows a woman stealing thousands of dollars worth of masks from her boutique business.
Shabrea Hunter runs Happy Everything, a home goods booth inside a Cordova marketplace. She said the masks were stolen Tuesday evening.
“I literally went home and went to bed, and I cried myself to sleep,” Hunter said.
Through tears, she talked about the loss.
“I just can’t believe somebody would do this to me,” Hunter said. “If she had asked me, I would have given it to her. But to take all of my inventory like that, it hurts.”
The pain stings even more as COVID-19 has stopped Hunter from setting up shop at any traveling market shows.
The booths she runs have been closed for the past six weeks, and tens of thousands of dollars of decorative Spring and Easter inventory she purchased, which she believed she would sell, is now shelved as the season has passed. She said she doesn’t qualify for any kind of financial aid.
“And my bills are still coming,” she said. “I still have to pay for that merchandise. I have three children. And they (the masks) have a pocket on the inside where you can insert a filter.”
While she was closed for weeks, Hunter shifted her business model.
“I decided to transition to filling a need in the community,” she said.
She decided to sell the specialty protective masks.
“So you can tighten it at the ear of you can loosen it, so it creates the perfect fit for you,” Hunter said.
She said dozens of the masks were stolen and estimated of a few thousand dollars in lost profit.
Looking ahead, Hunter turns to her faith as she figures out what’s next in the uncertain future of her business.
“Just because we’re all hurting that they feel that they can just start going into businesses and taking things,” Hunter said. “I want people to understand that we are a community, and if there is a need, there are resources out there to fill that need.”
If you have any information, call Crime Stoppers at 901-528-CASH.
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