Hollywood police seek suspect after restaurant parking lot break-ins

A masked suspect was caught on surveillance video breaking into a vehicle around 12:45 a.m. behind Boston Johnny’s on North Dixie Highway in Hollywood, and another car was hit across the street. The vehicle belonged to photojournalist Avi Robledo, who said he had been inside the restaurant for less than an hour when the burglary happened.

The footage shows the suspect walking through the rear parking lot at 2120 N. Dixie Highway, pausing as another vehicle passed, then circling back to pull on door handles before smashing a window to get inside. That sequence turned a routine dinner stop in a busy neighborhood corridor into a costly break-in, the kind of opportunistic crime that can happen in a lot only briefly left exposed.

Boston Johnny’s describes itself as a bar and grill at the Hollywood address and lists hours that run until 2 a.m., a schedule that can leave parked cars in the lot late into the night. The break-in happened in the rear parking lot, where cars can be easy targets if doors are unlocked or valuables are left in plain view.

Hollywood police say the case falls under the Criminal Investigations Division, which handles property crimes including burglary and theft. The department also operates a crime-mapping tool that lets users search reported incidents by address and time period, giving residents a way to track crimes in their own neighborhoods.

Police public crime-prevention materials urge residents, visitors and business owners to lock vehicles and remove valuables. The department has also warned that vehicle break-ins are among the most common crimes and that many involve unlocked cars, a warning that fits the pattern seen in this case.

The City of Hollywood says its beach patrol covers 4.5 miles of public beach and protects nearly 7 million visitors each year, underscoring the amount of traffic that moves through the city from the shoreline to entertainment corridors like North Dixie Highway. In a city built around restaurants, beaches and late-night activity, even a short stop can be enough time for a vehicle to be targeted if it is left vulnerable.