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Police are warning roadside fruit and vegetable sellers to take precautions after two robberies in two weeks.
In the latest incident, 15-year-old Kayla Fitzgerald was pushed to the ground then hit in the face when two men entered the van she was selling fruit from on the road along the foreshore of Papamoa.
The Cambridge teenager, who is staying with her grandparents in Tauranga during the school holidays, is working for her uncle Josh Fitzgerald, who co-owns a fruit and vege shop in Mt Maunganui.
She was not even supposed to be at work but had forgotten and turned up.
Two men, aged in their mid-20s, entered the store's white van on Maranui St about 5pm on Monday while Kayla was busy with a customer and took a canvas Westpac bank bag with about $600 inside. When Kayla confronted them, one of the offenders pushed her and when she got up, he hit her in the face.
"I guess they had been watching and waited until she was distracted," Mr Fitzgerald said.
"It's a bit of a shock, we have a lot of female sellers."
One of the offenders was seen running down nearby Sunrise Ave and the other traipsing through a field across the road from the stall.
A customer at the stall jumped in his car to search for them.
Mr Fitzgerald said Kayla handled herself well. "We have machetes in the van for cutting up fruit, he said.
"If it was me in there I probably would have grabbed one."
He said it was the first time the business had been robbed in the seven years it had provided the roadside service.
"We're always pretty responsible and go and collect the money from our sellers when it starts adding up but there's not much we can do about it. Going over there every hour and collecting money gets a bit annoying."
Acting Senior Sergeant Craig Madden of Mt Maunganui said traffic was heavy at the time of the robbery and is appealing for witnesses.
"They've got to be locals because they knew where they were going to get away. If you saw something, say something."
Both men are described as Maori.
The robbery follows an incident this month when a West Auckland strawberry seller on her first day at work was threatened at gunpoint.
The offenders - a man in his 40s and a woman in her 20s - demanded cash, jewellery and her cellphone at Swanson Reserve in Waitakere.
Other roadside fruit sellers spoken to along Maranui St and Papamoa Beach Rd said police had warned them to keep their money hidden, never hold a lot of cash, and be parked near a house they could run to if ever in trouble.
Mr Madden said police hadn't had trouble with people stealing from the stalls before. "This is a new one, it's obviously something we have to now put on the radar."
