{"id":110422,"date":"2026-01-23T22:45:17","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T22:45:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/110422\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T22:45:17","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T22:45:17","slug":"pokemon-store-robbery-hasnt-scared-away-its-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/110422\/","title":{"rendered":"Pok\u00e9mon Store Robbery Hasn\u2019t Scared Away Its Community"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier this month, Pok\u00e9 Court, a Pok\u00e9mon card and collectible shop in the Manhattan Meatpacking District, was holding a community event where fans gathered to decorate top loaders for their cards. The event was a first of its kind for the store, which opened in November. But that\u2019s not why the people there that night will remember it. The event was crashed by a group of masked robbers who held the store up at gunpoint<\/a>, smashed glass cases and shelves,\u00a0 and stole over $100,000 worth of collector\u2019s merchandise. \u201cThey just grabbed whatever they could,\u201d said owner Courtney Chin.<\/p>\n

Stories like this have unfortunately become more and more common<\/a> as the scalper market has become a quick money-making scheme for people who don\u2019t even care about Pikachu, Charizard, or any of the other monsters in the series. Stores have reported everything from armed robberies and being assaulted with pepper spray to people tunneling into stores like they\u2019re in a heist movie.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A store in Huntington Beach, California got hit right before the recent Christmas holiday. Thieves reportedly burrowed through some part of the shop\u2019s roof. \u201cIt\u2019s hard not to worry with so many other stores being hit,\u201d the owner, Jerry Hernandez, told the Los Angeles Times<\/a>. \u201cI feel like once we got hit and some of the other shops got hit it created a snowball effect.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Img\u00a9 Photo: Kenneth Shepard <\/p>\n

When I went to Pok\u00e9 Court this week, located on a cobblestone side street close to the Hudson River, the shelves were mostly still empty, but they did have a bouquet of flowers sitting on them next to some of the Pok\u00e9mon card top loaders fans had come together to decorate. If I hadn\u2019t already known about the smash and grab, there would have been little to suggest Pok\u00e9 Court had been the target of a terrible crime.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It was the middle of a cold Manhattan January afternoon, and the store still had dozens of customers coming in and out to joyfully buy and open trading card packs at the shop\u2019s bartop. But if you paid attention, there were clues to what had happened. Before I even spoke to anyone in the store, a customer was offering their condolences to the staff, who graciously accepted their kind words. In the corner of the entrance, Chin was putting the store\u2019s new security system through its paces.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cA world we must defend\u201d <\/p>\n

Chin started what would become a brick-and-mortar shop in one of the most expensive real estate markets in the country out of her second bedroom after getting back into Pok\u00e9mon collecting in a \u201creally intense way.\u201d She wanted to create something more \u201cspecialized\u201d than your average card shop. Trading cards have become such a lucrative hobby and business that most collectible stores diversify their stock, carrying sports cards alongside the Magic, Yu-Gi-Oh, and Pok\u00e9mon packs people love. Pok\u00e9 Court is meant to be a place where Pok\u00e9mon fans can reliably show up and know the store is dedicated to the franchise they\u2019re obsessed with, and is staffed by people with extensive experience and knowledge about its long and hype-fueled history.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are my friends who also grew up having the same core memories and really loving the franchise and thinking about all the values of Pok\u00e9mon that we really resonate with,\u201d Chin tells me. \u201cWe love the idea of community. We love the idea of trust, and even the theme song\u2019s \u2018being the very best,\u2019 right? It tries to bring out the best in people, and it teaches you about resilience and hardship. And I think there are a lot of core lessons that my generation really took to heart.\u201d<\/p>\n

While many Pok\u00e9mon sellers will go to larger community events and card shows<\/a>, Chin says that having the brick-and-mortar location makes it less feasible to uproot the shop to do temporary events. But that physical presence also helps anchor the business and foster a local community, one that has weathered the changing, difficult storms of Pok\u00e9mon collecting\u2019s post-Covid, scalper-addled chaos<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I first started, I used to price things at MSRP or even below,\u201d Chin says. \u201cI would want to have the best prices so people would always come to my shop and buy from me. Once it became all about money, we would have some individuals\u2014I don\u2019t want to assign a label to them\u2014but they would come and just buy everything and then immediately sell it. There\u2019s nothing wrong with that. It\u2019s a free market. But then they got really creative and they started botting our site. So we would drop something on our site and then we would immediately get flooded with hundreds of orders from the same individuals buying out all of our products. Then we would get an angry response from our actual customers and our regulars and they\u2019re like, \u2018You didn\u2019t save anything.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

In response, Pok\u00e9 Court has had to adjust prices, which Chin acknowledges raises the barrier to entry for some people. But the lengths to which people would go to buy out all of the shop\u2019s stock for cheap and then flip it became \u201cunsavory,\u201d even escalating into shouting matches and fights outside the store.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt really shouldn\u2019t be about the money but unfortunately that\u2019s what everyone focuses on because it\u2019s so attention grabbing,\u201d Chin says. \u201cThen people get excited, they\u2019re like, \u2018oh, my collection is now worth $1,000 instead of $100. I\u2019ve made so much money.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

Welcome to Exp. Share, Kotaku \u2019s Pok\u00e9mon column in which we dive deep to explore notable characters, urban legends, communities, and just plain weird quirks from throughout the Pok\u00e9mon franchise.<\/p>\n

Fights are one thing, but threats of gun violence were something else entirely. Chin was in the store\u2019s back room when Pok\u00e9 Court\u2019s top loader event was wrapping up. Around 40 customers and 14 employees were in the store at the time, including folks who just wanted to hang out for the festivities. Chin knew something was wrong the second she heard the sound of glass shattering. Employees and customers rushed to the back of the store for safety as the robbers went to work.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Img\u00a9 Photo: Kenneth Shepard <\/p>\n

Chin was able to hit the store\u2019s panic button and call the police. Thankfully, no one was hurt, but thousands of dollars worth of vintage and rare merchandise from across the Pok\u00e9mon franchise\u2019s 30 years was gone. That\u2019s where most reports about what happened at Pok\u00e9 Court end, but that\u2019s not the whole story.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cOur courage will pull us through\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cI thought that our shop would be deserted and everyone would be scared and employees would resign because they feel like this is an unsafe work environment, but it was almost the opposite,\u201d Chin says. \u201cEveryone really bonded together and wanted to stay here longer. After the robbery, everyone could have gone home, which is the rational thing to do, but everyone, we had 50 people here, and they all wanted to stay. They all stood in line and gave their statements to the police, and they all wanted to be here for each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

The New York Pok\u00e9 Court community showed up for each other, but as word of the shop\u2019s story spread, Chin says the broader Pok\u00e9mon community has reached out in support as well. Big content creators have shared the store\u2019s community fund<\/a> that\u2019s raised thousands of dollars. Even big names in Pok\u00e9mon like Ash Ketchum<\/a> voice actor Sarah Natochenny<\/a> started reaching out on social media<\/a>. Chin says the store has gotten an influx of job applications, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re like, \u2018I want to work for you\u2019 and I\u2019m like, \u2018We just got held up. I can\u2019t believe you would want to spend more time in this spot.\u2019 So I think that it\u2019s very encouraging that people are bouncing back even harder than ever. We\u2019re not going to let a robbery stop us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Img\u00a9 Photo: Kenneth Shepard <\/p>\n

The support has gone beyond just people donating money. Some have offered musical performances in-store while others bring in food for staff. The immediate pillow of support has been a \u201cbig morale booster\u201d for the team. While the Pok\u00e9 Court has been in headlines over one of the worst things that could have happened to it, Chin wants people to know that the Pok\u00e9mon community is more than just collectors chasing the most valuable cards.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the most common misconceptions is that the Pok\u00e9mon community is full of people who only are in it for the money or only care about investing or are scalpers,\u201d she says. \u201cYou just hear the worst, right? But for better or for worse, this robbery has shown how people can come together in a really positive and genuinely heartwarming way to support total strangers, to support their local card shop, to support all the people who were absolutely traumatized by this experience. I\u2019ve just been floored and humbled and I\u2019m so thankful that there\u2019s this massive community.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the shop\u2019s story has spread on social media, neighboring card shops around the state have also been reaching out about the stolen merchandise, verifying certification numbers in case the robbers try to sell what they took. The entire thing has made Chin feel like the shop has a \u201cnetwork of friends\u201d that expands far beyond New York City.<\/p>\n

When I left Pok\u00e9 Court this week, it was just as full of Pok\u00e9mon fans as it\u2019s ever been, though it now has additional security. There was a version of the store\u2019s future where fans stopped showing up to buy and open packs, scared off by the threat of violence over a hobby that\u2019s supposed to be about bringing people together. Instead, the store is bouncing back, thanks in no small part to a community that was never in it for the money to begin with. They were in it for each other and the friends they\u2019ve met along the way through a shared love of Pok\u00e9mon.<\/p>\n