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Car Slams Into North Miami Beach Business

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MIAMI (CBSMiami) - The owner of a North Miami Beach business spent Friday cleaning up after a car plowed into his store front overnight.

Ronen Hazan, owner of Yakut Properties which deals in real estate and property management, said he received a call early this morning that a driver of a Dodge Charger had crashed into office at 1072 North Miami Beach Boulevard.

"Messed up everything that we build for like three years," said Hazan.

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Hazan who'd stayed up to welcome his birthday instead received a call around 1 a.m. from the North Miami Beach police department.

"I got a phone call from the police department around 1 a.m., I was trying to celebrate my birthday and I got a call that a car had hit the front of our office. When I came here I was shocked to see that a car came from the other side of the road into the front of the store. It hit the security pole we have outside on the curb, hit the glass, hit the wall, it broke the wall as you can see and messed up the entire office," said Hazan.

The car smashed through the front of the building then hit a wall inside and destroyed everything in its path.

Hazan said given the state of the office, it will be a challenge to help all of his customers.  He added that it's going to take quite some time to recover.

The income tax business next door is also dealing with damage. The owner said employees had just left after working late during tax season.

"We just escaped this and left here.  Otherwise we would have been in the middle of this.  Probably somebody would have been in the hospital," said business owner Shurla Robinson.

"Thank God it didn't happen during the day when there's about eight people working in the office and there's traffic of tenants and customers," said Hazan.

While crews worked to clean up the mess, the driver, Joseph Willy, 39, was checked out at the hospital

Willy was cited for careless driving. Willy's daughter said he swerved to avoid a pedestrian and lost control.

"Someone crossed in front of him, so in order for him to either move out the way, he moved out the way, but the car lost control with him," said the Willy's daughter Santiana Thanus.

She said her father hurt his neck in the crash.

Police estimate that he was doing 50 mph on a posted 35 mph road at the time of the accident.

The owner of the business said this is one day he won't soon forget.

"It's Friday the 13th.  It's my birthday also so a good gift, I guess," said Hazan. "Thank God nothing happened and nobody was injured as far as human beings."

The owner of the business said they'll work out a temporary location until they can get the business back up and running.

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