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Spectrum Service Restored After Thousands Lose Cable In Parts Of Queens, Brooklyn

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Spectrum cable, internet and phone service is back up and running Tuesday after hours of outages throughout Queens and Brooklyn halted business and caused headaches for thousands of customers.

The sweet swipe of a credit card was a welcome feeling for Mike Patel, whose shop's credit card machine and ATM were down for the entire business day Monday.

"Today I'm happy but yesterday, the whole day customer mad. They say what happened?" he told CBS2's Magdalena Doris. "I lost yesterday more than $500 for credit cards."

More than 60,000 Spectrum cable customers throughout Queens and Brooklyn had no dial tone, no TV and no Internet Monday.

Queens Borough President Melinda Katz tweeted Monday, "per Spectrum, at approximately 2AM today, vandals cut fiber at 4 major hubs, cutting service for 60,000 customers in Queens."

The issue behind the outage was clipped fiber cables. Construction crews say the reinforced wires are tough and it looks to be the work of a professional, someone who knows how to cut the cables and has the tools to do so, Doris reported.

Police sources say this was vandalism which can be linked Spectrum union workers who have been on strike for months.

"We would never condone that, we would never do that," said on-strike Spectrum technician Ray Reyes.

Police say this wasn't the first time vandalism affected Spectrum service in the area. Investigators are still looking into an incident in April where fibers were deliberately cut causing an outage for 30,000 people. No one has been charged in either incident.

Spectrum would not comment on the union dispute, but says service has been restored.

IBEW local 3 says talks are at a stalemate as the strike continues and that the union does not condone the destruction of property.

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