The owners of an Edinburgh dessert parlour that has been open less than a year are gutted after a teen stole the staff tip jar from the counter and made off with it.
Bilal and Amber, who own Sweet Paradice Desserts on Comiston Road, saw the brazen youngster nick the jar filled with gratuities for the hard working staff.
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CCTV footage of the thief, wearing a blue tracksuit, shows him grabbing the jar filled with money. The family behind the business have decided not to contact police due to the youngster's tender age but have been left gutted by the raid.
Sweet Paradice Desserts is a popular Instagramable cafe serving sweet treats, mocktails and milkshakes to Morningside locals.
They explained that the dessert shop has only been open a year and that it is incredibly difficult to run a business during the cost of living crisis without having to deal with careless blows to staff morale.
Owners Bilal and Amber told Edinburgh Live: "With the current unprecedented climate, we along with many other businesses are struggling to operate.
"Taking into account the challenges we are facing everyday to keep serving the public, staff tips go a long way to rewarding our employees. So for someone to have stolen our tip jar is a stab in the back."
They continued: "The team at Sweet Paradice Desserts has been nothing short of amazing since we opened less than a year ago. With this incident and setback, management have taken further precaution measures at a cost to prevent this from happening. Moreover, will spend their own money to make sure staff are rewarded and morale remains high."
Adding: "We haven’t reported it to the police because believe the individual to be a minor so want them to know what they have done is wrong and learn from their mistake going forward."
If you have any information about the incident or would like to find out more about the business you can get in touch here.
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