Mary’s Pizza offices evacuated by bomb threat

“You won’t answer my call, so you have one hour to get out of the building. I planted a bomb.”

Those chilling words, left on an employee’s answering machine, set in motion a series of events at Mary’s Pizza Shack’s offices on Sonoma Highway last Tuesday morning, Sept. 6, that resulted in the building’s evacuation, a call-out of the Sheriff’s Department bomb squad, a nervous wait for the company’s employees and, eventually, a return that afternoon to swept-clean offices.

As many as seven deputies – including the county’s “bomb squad” officer Sgt. Randy Williams and Sonoma Chief of Police Bret Sackett – appeared on the scene in response to a call from Vince Albano, the CEO of Mary’s Pizza Shack and grandson of founder Mary Fazio.

“Once I was notified, we just wanted everyone out of the building,” said Albano. “I told them to take a look and see if anything looked unusual on the way out,” a precaution that impressed Sgt. Michelle Buchignani of Sonoma Police.

“That’s one of the things law enforcement faces in these situations: we don’t know what’s normal for an office building, so we don’t know what looks right and what looks wrong,” Buchignani told the Index-Tribune.

One of the employees was nervous about a strange backpack-looking device in a corner, but Albano determined it was just a vacuum cleaner.

The dozen or so employees quickly vacated the building and waited outside the nearby Plaza Tequila for police and sheriff’s deputies to arrive. When they did, they asked the employees to go inside the restaurant for safety. They then placed yellow tape in front of the common driveway and decided to just wait out the hour rather than risk lives going into the building.

Passersby noticed the police cars and yellow tape in front of Mary’s and the neighboring Plaza Tequila, and some recorded their concerns on Facebook. Only jokes about Mexican food and sheriff’s parties resulted.

“Once the time elapsed, we went in and there was nothing there,” said Buchignani. Deputies also checked the perimeter of the building and the company’s interior security devices before re-opening the building for business.

Albano told the Index-Tribune that when he called his brother-in-law, Vincent Dito, the food and beverage manager of the local pizza chain, Dito said he thought the number might be one that had tried to reach his own cell phone. He called the number, and asked the man who answered about the bomb threat. But the voice said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but you’re behind on your PG&E bill, and if you don’t pay we’re shutting the power off.”

But Sackett said the two numbers were not the same – as Dito appeared to be responding to a common telephone con, in which scammers pose as PG&E officials demanding money. The scam and the bomb threat reaching two of Mary’s staff that day were coincidental, said the sheriff’s department. The sheriff’s department’s effort to trace the two calls were fruitless, though the PG&E call proved to be “some phantom company out of Vista, California.”

“We’re having phone scams running all over the place now, it’s kind of the crime du jour so to speak,” said Sackett. He cited callers who claim to be from the county who demand a payment over missed subpoenas, missed jury duty, late utility bills and others. “If on its face it sounds bogus, it is bogus.”

Though Albano suspected the bomb threat call may have been frustration over a failing scam, Sackett was pretty sure they were unrelated and coincidental. The caller asked for an employee by name and left the message in her voice mail, suggesting he knew who he was harassing. That incident is still under investigation.

For the employees of Mary’s Pizza Shack, the day’s disruption did have its upside.

“Because they barricaded the driveway no patrons could get into the restaurant parking lot until an hour and a half went by,” said Albano. “We said, you know, we’re affecting their lunch trade, so let’s eat. And I bought everyone lunch.”

After the hubbub died down and the building was opened again for business, Albano told his employees if anyone wanted to take the rest of the day off, he’d understand.

“One hundred percent of the people came back to work,” he said.

Contact Christian at christian.kallen@sonomanews.com.