NEWBURY PARK : Police Investigate Pizza Store Holdups

Police in Newbury Park were investigating Monday the latest in a rash of pizza parlor robberies across eastern Ventura County.

An armed robber, who witnesses said carried a chrome handgun and wore a ski mask and goggles, confronted employees as they closed a Domino’s Pizza outlet on Michael Drive at 1:45 a.m., Ventura County Sheriff’s Department Sgt. Keith Parks said.

The suspect, described as a 5-foot, 4-inch, 130-pound white male, ordered the employees into the store, forced the manager to open a safe and took about $200, Parks said.

The robber then forced the employees into a restroom at gunpoint and fled, Parks said. No one was injured in the robbery, he said.

Monday’s incident was the fourth such crime in the Thousand Oaks area in the past month and a half, said Sgt. Dan Coons of the sheriff’s major crimes division. There have also been at least three other pizza parlor robberies in the Simi Valley area in that period, he said.

Because the robberies have been very similar, police believe several were committed by one man.

The main suspect in several of the other robberies is described as an Asian man who is about 20 years old and about 5 feet, 6 inches tall, who wears a ski mask or pantyhose over his head and brandishes a dark metal revolver, Coons said.

Witnesses said the suspect speaks with a Vietnamese or Chinese accent.

The Ventura County Crime Stoppers is offering a $1,000 reward for information on the robberies, and police are asking anyone with information to call 494-TALK.