Kent Driscoll
Northern News Services

Iqaluit (Oct 10/05) - Employees at Iqaluit's only 24-hour business were terrorized by two men with weapons last week.

A man with an axe and a man with a long barrelled rifle tried to break into The Snack at about 4:40 a.m. Oct. 6.

The incident has prompted the restaurant's owners to call for more RCMP officers on the street at night.

"Our drivers see all the bad stuff that happens at night. We don't feel secure any more. It's dangerous. You never know who is going to answer the door. My boss is going to ask the minister to make sure there is more protection at night," said manager Johanne Gilbert.

Two men - one with a medium build and wearing a puffy red jacket and a second with a shorter build and a long dark jacket - used the axe in an attempt to smash through a plexiglass door. When that didn't work, one of the men fired a rifle at the door. The bullet penetrated the plexiglass and went through the wall directly on the left.

It emerged between the urinals, and ricocheted across the men's room, ending up lodged in the wall.

The plexiglass door held up and the robbers were foiled.

Three staff members were working at the time: a cook, a driver and a cashier. After the initial axe blows, two of them escaped through a back door into one of the delivery trucks. The third person ran to the truck after the rifle was pointed at them.

The trio then drove to RCMP headquarters.

Two men were spotted running away after the shooting, heading toward the Iqaluit library.

RCMP responded initially, and returned at 5:40 a.m. to get forensic evidence from the bullet.

Staff at The Snack were nervous the morning after the shooting, refusing to pose for pictures and wanting to keep their names out of the newspaper.

"They are worried that someone might come back," Gilbert explained.

The Snack was taken over by new owners six years ago, and no one has attacked the operation with a gun since then. They made changes, like closing the dining room at 8 p.m. instead of 11 p.m.

It didn't stop the problems though. One week, Gilbert had to replace every front window in the building, after a perturbed customer broke them all.

On Jan. 10, 2001, a Snack driver was beaten with a hammer and robbed of $2,100 while on delivery.

After this latest robbery attempt, Gilbert says that there will be new security measures put in place. She won't reveal what they are, saying, "We really want to catch these guys."

Iqaluit RCMP requested the public's help and urged residents that may have witnessed something in the early morning hours of Oct. 6 to call Crime Stoppers or the Iqaluit RCMP.