A Melbourne restaurateur has spoken out about the toll of repeated break-ins at her hospitality venues, saying her staff now work in fear and that "feeling safe should not be a luxury" for business owners. Sutinee Suntivatana, 47, who runs Humble Rays Café and Tori's Artisan Bakery and Matcha Bar with her husband, said her premises had been burgled more than six times, including a violent forced entry at her Niagara Lane bakery in August, with the incidents coming amid growing concern over crime rates across Victoria.

CCTV from the August raid showed a masked man kicking down the bakery's front door, smashing the glass, before helping himself to items behind the counter and leaving the shopfront windows shattered. Victorian Crime Statistics Agency figures show 625,426 offences were recorded in the year to March 2026, with retail theft up 11.7 per cent to more than 20,000 reported incidents. Suntivatana said she had spent thousands of dollars upgrading CCTV, alarms and locks after each break-in, that one staff member had been injured in a previous incident, and that despite the ordeal she remained committed to her business and to Melbourne, while calling for greater visible policing.