FORT MYERS BEACH \u2014 Sweet Licks, a popular ice cream shop on Fort Myers Beach, was the target of a theft on Thursday, Jan. 22. According to the owner, 11 chairs and a table, valued at $1,275, were taken from the shop in Santini Plaza.<\/p>\n
Adriana Maffei and her husband opened the shop in March of 2025 after falling in love with the island.<\/p>\n
\u201cI never thought something like this could happen here,\u201d Maffei said. \u201cEveryone is so wonderful in this community.\u201d<\/p>\n
Security cameras around Santini Plaza captured the theft in detail.<\/p>\n
Footage shows a person in red shorts, a dark jacket, and a ball cap walking through the plaza at 11:01 p.m., returning at 11:27 p.m. with a cart, and rolling away with the chairs and table at 11:29 p.m.<\/p>\n
A white van was seen driving by at 11:08 p.m., returning at 11:24 p.m., and leaving three minutes after the theft at 11:32 p.m.<\/p>\n
According to the Lee County Sheriff\u2019s Office, a deputy responded to Sweet Licks on January 26 in reference to a past burglary.<\/p>\n
While the thief hasn\u2019t been caught, Maffei says the incident hasn\u2019t overshadowed the generosity of the community. Neighbors and customers quickly rallied to help, raising the full amount to replace the stolen items.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s such an overwhelming emotional feeling for us, and we\u2019re so grateful to Fort Myers Beach, the community, the customers, Santini Plaza, and Beach Talk Radio,\u201d Maffei said.<\/p>\n
The Lee County Sheriff\u2019s Office says the investigation is ongoing. The owner signed a desire to prosecute.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT MYERS BEACH \u2014 Sweet Licks, a popular ice cream shop on Fort Myers Beach, was the target…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":134081,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210,1695,2094],"class_list":{"0":"post-134080","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cape-coral","8":"tag-cape-coral","9":"tag-cape-coral-headlines","10":"tag-cape-coral-news","11":"tag-fort-myers-beach","12":"tag-lee-county-sheriffs-office"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134080"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134080\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}