Surveillance Cameras Capture Smash-And-Grab Robbery At New Jersey Liquor Store

CLIFTON, N.J. (CBSNewYork) -- Police are searching for two men caught on camera robbing a New Jersey liquor store.

It started around 2 a.m. Tuesday when a pickup truck plowed into the storefront of Liquor Locker in Clifton.

"This truck back it up very fast and they took the ATM machine and they went away," store co-owner Venkat Reddy said. "It's very shocking though.  This is Clifton, I'm surprised."

Surveillance video first shows the two men -- one wearing a grey sweatshirt and the other a black hoodie -- arriving in front of the store at 305 Allwood Road around 2 a.m., CBS2's Hazel Sanchez reported.

As Sanchez reported, the shop is located off busy Route 3, but the store front only faces the parking lot, which lessens the chance that anyone driving by would have seen the robbers in action.

The suspects appear to set up the game plan and then crash through the front windows before taking off with the ATM in the truck bed, Sanchez reported.

"They destroyed everything. Our furniture, our floor. We have to redo the flooring. A lot of wines gone, scotch. All the expensive stuff is broken," Reddy said, adding that the product is far more valuable than the estimated $1,500 believed to have been in the cash machine.

Reddy estimates more than $100,000 worth of high-end wine and liquor was destroyed or is now unsellable.

"I don't want to curse them," co-owner Srini Mandeala said. "But hopefully they understand how other people's lives are, the other side.  That's what it is."

The 3-year-old store was already struggling to stay afloat and now its owners worry this robbery could sink their livelihood.

"We put a lot of effort to make something better, life. So someone snatched away our life," Mandeala said.

The owners are insured and have vowed to rebuild.

The suspects took off in what appears to be a Ford F250 or 350. It will have obvious rear end damage from the impact.

Anyone with information is urged to call police.

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