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Hot Dog Shop Owner Charged In Bank Robbery

DORMONT (KDKA) -- Pittsburgh police arrested a local business owner accused of robbing two banks.

City detectives went inside Dormont Dogs looking for loot believed to have been taken in a bank robbery.

They found the money inside a small red cooler that was brimming with more than $2,200 cash.

Captain Barnes, 37, is a former chef at Sonoma Restaurant in downtown Pittsburgh and the owner of the specialty hot dog shop.

Dormont Dogs didn't open for business Wednesday because Barnes was grabbed and held by a number of people after allegedly holding up a Citizen's Bank on the South Side.

Barnes' hot dog shop was popular – even earning a Reader's Choice Award from Trib Total Media and a positive review in the Post-Gazette's Munch column.

Now people in the neighborhood are trying to understand what went wrong.

"My son worked over there – he just seemed like such a cool guy – like an old hippy, you know what I mean?," Sam Mastroianni said.

Barnes is also accused of hitting up a PNC Bank Branch in Brookline on Monday and supposedly told the tellers he planted a bomb inside the bank.

He is now in the Allegheny County Jail charged with five counts of robbery.

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