ST. CHARLES, Mo. – Some business owners in St. Charles woke up to some disturbing news Saturday, learning that someone shattered their windows overnight.

The St. Charles Police Department confirms that at least one person broke the front windows of at least seven businesses on historic Main Street.

Main Street business owners weren’t pleased with what they saw when they arrived to open up their shops Saturday morning.

“I got a call this morning that a window had been broken at the studio,” said Alex Young, owner of The Young Studio. “Naturally, I came up here to find out. Luckily it didn’t go through both panes of glass, so much better situation, if there is a silver lining.”

One business owner, a couple of stores down, says he didn’t even realize what had happened until the police arrived.

“Police knocked at my door, and say, ‘Hey, you got glass broken on your windows,'” said Larry Muench, owner of John Dengler Tobacconist. “I wasn’t very happy, obviously, especially on a busy Saturday morning.”

Early speculation is that either teenagers or intoxicated people coming from the bars caused the mess.

“The barsite kind of has more of a rowdy crowd by nature,” said Young. “My guess is, someone came down here and did some damage, but that’s for the cops to figure out.”

While there are no reports of anything being stolen, the broken windows are making things much harder for the small businesses, who believe this to be an isolated incident.

“St. Charles is a really safe place,” said Muench. “We’ve always been safe. We have a great police department. Things like that happen.”

“We’ve been here since 2020, probably the first time we had any negative issues like this,” said Young. “I don’t see it as an ongoing issue, but it is an inconvenience to us and our clients. But we’ll clean up and will get going.”