SAN DIEGO (KGTV) --A local small business owner fears every day for her business, after facing threats of being burned alive, along with her business. She says she was terrorized by a homeless man, living on her roof.
Pamela Taylor is the owner of "Get Hooked" on Garnet Avenue in Pacific Beach. She says, there hasn't been a lot of luck in the store since she opened four months ago. She thinks the reason lies with what happens just outside the doors.
"Since I moved here it's been a serious problem for me and other business owners around here," Taylor said, talking about the homeless people who live in the area and harass potential customers. " "It's constant, it's at least every two hours somebody like that comes by."
Taylor says the other night, that harassment got dangerous. She was alone, closing up the shop when she saw a man with a propane tank lit in the doorway of her store. When she asked him to leave, he got angry.
"There's a homeless person who was drunk and obviously high on I don't know what, cooking on a propane tank at my back door," she said. "(He) threatened to burn me down, threatened to burn me, threatened to burn my whole business down."
Taylor says it's not the personal threat that shook her. Her biggest fear is losing the store she's worked so hard to open.
"I can't operate a business with this going on, I fear every night that someone is going to burn my place down," she said. "Fire is a huge risk, and the way they cook with their propane, carry propane tanks with them, it's very dangerous, and that's what scares me more than anything."
Taylor says the man eventually left with help from two bystanders, but she says getting police to the store took nearly six hours.
