By Caryn Dolley
Robbers have again struck Canal Walk Shopping Centre.
This time five men robbed a jewellery store, the second jewellery retailer in the centre to be robbed in just over two weeks and an incident which brings the number of robberies at the centre to four in as many months.
Police are now investigating whether Wednesday's robbers might have been involved in the jewellery store robbery which occurred there earlier this month.
To improve security Canal Walk managers are now considering introducing scanning devices and random checks at the centre's entrances.
About half an hour after Wednesday's robbery at Oro e Diamanti police were still at the scene and two shaken employees could be seen talking to officers inside the cordoned-off store.
An inside display case was smashed and appeared to have been hit with a sharp object.
Police officers, Canal Walk security guards and shoppers milled around outside the store.
A number of shoppers muttered to each other: "Another one. There's been another robbery".
A number of the surrounding shops' employees, who did not want to be named, said they no longer felt safe.
"You just don't know when these people will strike. I mean they did this at lunch time, when it's busiest... Today I just heard screaming, then this sound like shots, and then saw a man running with a hammer," a cashier said.
Milnerton police spokesperson Daphne Dell said five men walked into the shop. One pulled out a hammer and smashed a display cabinet.
The men grabbed five trays of jewellery, mainly containing diamond rings, before running out of a nearby entrance to the mall.
Dell said video footage showed the men speeding off in a silver Mercedes-Benz.
Canal Walk's spokesperson Vanessa Herbst said managers were concerned about "this new modus operandi".
"It is ... alerting all jewellery tenants about the incidents and will advise and assist each retailer to ensure that in-store security measures are adjusted in line with this trend," she said.
Aside from the two jewellery shop robberies, in May two gunmen held up staff at John Dory's Fish and Grill and were arrested hours later.
An employee was shot in the neck during the incident.
The month before that, three gunmen robbed Checkers staff in the centre and shot and wounded a bystander.
In another incident at a shop on Tuesday, six men armed with knives robbed a clothing store in Access Park in Kenilworth and managed to escape in a white Toyota Corolla.