Bizarre twist as stunning decline in Bay Area crime hurts business owners: ‘We’ve taken quite a hit’

A Northern California city has seen a dramatic drop in the number of car break-ins, which is welcome news for car owners, but not so great news for local window repair shops.

The Oakland Police Department crime dashboard stats show a 37% drop in auto burglary between the month of May 2026 and the same month last year, KTVU reported.

But for businesses like local auto glass repair and replacement company Glass on the Move Inc., the efforts to cut down on break-ins is hurting the bottom line.

“About 35 percent — 35 to 40. It’s a lot. We’ve taken quite a hit,” said owner of the shop James Serwa.

He said he’s even had to let staff go, reducing headcount from seven installers down to four.

Serwa said he noticed the trend over a year ago as the drop in thefts of catalytic converters fell.

“We noticed this trend about a year ago, about the same time the catalytic converters started to die out, so did the calls for break-ins,” Serwa said.

The owner of Low Price Auto Glass, Raj Singh, said there’s definitely been a drop in calls for car window repair and replacement by “about 30 percent.”

But Singh said calls from customers who need glass repaired due to debris on the road have kept the lights on. 

The decline in car break-ins isn’t the only category experiencing a crime plunge, there’s also been a drop in carjackings by 49%, Oaklandside reported.

There’s even been a drop in violent crime by 22% in the first quarter of the year compared to the same time in 2025.

And some have said they’ve noticed a slight change in the city. Longtime East Oakland resident, Melvin Welch, 72, said the fear he used to have to rush home because of crime has eased somewhat lately.

“It’s a good thing, especially for me,” Welch told KQED. “Oakland is a beautiful city. We get a bad rep because of crime.”

It appears there’s not one specific reason for the changes, with officials recently crediting prevention programs and targeted policing efforts as contributing factors, the East Bay Times reported.

The California Post reached out to the Oakland Police Department for further comment. 

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