Their faces were covered and they wore latex gloves to mask their identities.
Taramoeroa yelled at a staff member to empty the cash register into a bag then demanded to know where the safe was, ordering her to open it.
"You told her if she didn't know the [combination] number she would be sorry," Judge Weir said.
The group had made off with $11,000, none of which had been recovered, but the sawn- off shotgun had been found in a pillow case under Taramoeroa's bed.
The judge said the woman held at gunpoint had been petrified, she suffered from flashbacks and it took her a long time to return to her former workplace to see her colleagues.
She was now on anti-depressants and seeing a psychologist. As her family's sole income earner she was no longer able to work, going from a decent wage to barely existing on ACC.
Judge Weir noted Taramoeroa had already served a three-year jail term for aggravated robbery, saying he took that into account when sentencing him to seven years and two months.
- NZPA