Los Alamos Police detectives at Hill Diner, 1315 Trinity Dr., this morning investigating an overnight burglary. Courtesy photo

By Carol A. Clark

The restaurant is open for business now but when employees arrived to work this morning at the Hill Diner, they discovered in short order that something was wrong. A window had been pushed in and the cash register was “trashed.”

“We don’t keep any cash in the restaurant,” owner Denise Lane said.

Lane explained that this is the fourth time the Hill Diner at  1315 Trinity Dr.,  has been burglarized since it opened 26 years ago.

She had a state of the art alarm system installed but for some reason it didn’t go off during this latest burglary.

“There was some sort of malfunction of the motion sensors,” Lane said.

Los Alamos Police Det. Monica Salazar is a member of the team investigating the burglary.

“We received the call about the burglary at about 8:15 a.m., today,” Salazar said. “The alarm didn’t go off but we know that the burglary occurred sometime between 10 p.m. Saturday when the restaurant closed and around 8 a.m. this morning when employees arrived at work. We were able to get a couple of finger prints, which we will be processing and we’ll interview other employees as well.”

She added that the burglar or burglars damaged the cash register while attempting to get at its contents, which consisted of less than $10 in coins.

Salazar asks anyone who noticed anything suspicious around the Hill Diner between 10 p.m. Saturday and 8 a.m. today to call detectives at 662-8222.