Eight

Dec 15, 2023

Young entrepreneur Julian Lin was running his lemonade stand for four hours in New York on Sunday afternoon when two young teenagers waited in line to steal his earnings

An eight-year-old boy was left in tears after cold-hearted teenagers stole his lemonade stand earnings.

Young entrepreneur Julian Lin was running his lemonade stand on Sunday afternoon in New York, US, when two young teenagers waited in line and asked him for some drinks.

But when Julian turned away to give his customers the lemonade, they stole his jar of money on the table and ran off on their scooters, according to police.

Julian, who had been selling for four hours at the time of the incident, saw his jar fill up to $100-$150 before the robbers took off with his hard-earned cash.

Thankfully, some of the money had been paid using Venmo but a large proportion had still gone missing.

"I feel disappointed in humanity," the young businessman told the ilovetheupperwestside.com blog. "I didn't realise that someone would want to rob an 8-year-old."

Some of Julian's kind-hearted neighbours stumped up the remaining money and even gave him big tips.

"When I lost all that cash a lot of people wanted to help me recover, so they gave me extra big tips," he told the blog.

"It made me feel good that so many people wanted to help me recover from this attack," the boy added. "It made me feel happy, joyful, grateful."

Julian revealed that, despite the incident, he is still keen to get into business and has learnt a valuable lesson when dealing with customers.

He said: "I will not have my money out there for anyone to grab. I will be more alert. I will trust my instincts because I could tell that those guys were shady since one of them was wearing a ski mask."

"But I will keep doing what I’m doing because I love being a businessman and I love dogs," he added. "And 30% of my profits go to Best Friends Animal Sanctuary."

The teenagers are still on the loose, according to police, with anyone with tips urged to contact the New York Police Department.

It comes just days after a thief broke into the Sweet Something bakery in Vancouver, smashed the glass front door, and stole cupcakes - and then apologised to the owner.

In the early hours on May 26, a man showed up at Sweet Something in Vancouver, kicked the front door, shattering the glass before crouching and climbing in through the hole he created, according to police.

Once inside, CCTV footage showed the man sat down for a few minutes before getting up to use the bathroom, trying to clean up broken glass from the door and taking selfies on the bakery's phone.

Just days later, the thief called the shop and asked to speak to the owner during which he apologised for what he said was a "dumb mistake" and offered to pay for the cupcakes as well as the repairs for the front door.

Police have not made any arrests yet but confirmed they are still investigating the incident.

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