Thieves Target In On Something Other Than Blue Jeans…Eyeglasses

By MIKE MORRIS/AJC 

Smash and-grab burglars hit another Atlanta retail store early Friday, but this time, instead of stealing high-dollar blue jeans, they took designer eyeglasses and sunglasses.

The thieves shattered the front door of the Pearle Vision store on Lenox Road in Buckhead shortly before 3 a.m. Atlanta police Sgt. J.A. Branum said.

Store employees estimated that the thieves made off with about $150,000 in merchandise.

Atlanta police earlier this year set up a task force to investigate a rash of similar buglaries at high-end clothing boutiques. Branum said that task force would also be looking into the Pearle Vision heist.

He said investigators were also trying to determine whether the Pearle incident is connected to another overnight burglary, in which suspects threw a rock through the window of a Fatburger restuarant a couple of miles away on Piedmont Road and stole a flat screen television.

The Pearle store is also just down Lenox Road from Signature 4 Men, a clothing store where, three weeks ago, burglars rammed a pickup truck through the front of the store.