Movi­eTowne own­er Derek Chin has urged the pub­lic to ex­er­cise cau­tion fol­low­ing a rob­bery out­side PriceS­mart yes­ter­day, which he said ex­posed gaps in the store’s se­cu­ri­ty.

Chin ex­plained that yes­ter­day af­ter­noon two armed men tar­get­ed a woman who was walk­ing to­ward PriceS­mart. “They caught the girl. The se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers came and helped be­cause they tried to steal the car and take her keys,” he said. “There was an al­ter­ca­tion, but they jumped in the car and ran away, tak­ing her mon­ey."

He said the woman was hurt, but does not think the in­jury was se­ri­ous.

He said Movi­eTowne is ad­vis­ing all stores on its com­pound to in­crease se­cu­ri­ty, in­clud­ing at PriceS­mart.

Chin added that Movie Towne had dou­bled its se­cu­ri­ty pres­ence. “We are re­spon­si­ble for the ground car park and the mall, but PriceS­mart does not have ad­e­quate se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers,” he said.

He con­firmed his lawyers are prepar­ing a let­ter to PriceS­mart man­age­ment fol­low­ing the rob­bery ask­ing them to in­crease se­cu­ri­ty.

Chin warned that the pub­lic must re­main vig­i­lant, es­pe­cial­ly dur­ing the busy Christ­mas sea­son.

“There are a lot of peo­ple com­ing to the mall and PriceS­mart, but they need to be very care­ful. We are do­ing our best, but even that does not stop crim­i­nals,” he said.