RIP Beverly Hills: Video Shows High-end Retail Stores Now Shuttered
By Ronny Reyes
Beverly Hills is becoming a ghost town, as high-end retail stores exit the once-luxurious city near Los Angeles amid a spate of high-end smash-and-grab gang robberies.
Videos posted on TikTok by self-proclaimed “Nostalgic Angelino” cody90210 show off more than a dozen Beverly Hills retailers and restaurants completely shuttered and not replaced by new businesses, leaving their empty storefronts as shells.
Some of the businesses include luxury staples like Barneys New York and Escada, with the once-popular brands having filed for bankruptcy in recent years.
Other big-name stores now lying empty include former locations for Chanel, Rite Aid, Barnes & Noble, Niketown, and restaurants like Chipotle and Starbucks.
The Chanel on North Robertson Boulevard in Beverly Hills shut down following two burglaries last year, with the building still shuttered.
The former Escada store on Wilshire Boulevard is also vacant after the company filed for bankruptcy last year.
The barren stores stand in stark contrast with the city’s reputation for glamor and opulence, and as a place where celebrities, fashionistas and business moguls are regularly photographed by paparazzi.
Despite the many shuttered stores, other businesses have managed to stave off ruin, with places like Saks Fifth Avenue, Hermes and Gucci earning a spot in the TikTok account’s “Best of Beverly Hills” compilation.
Stores that survived the economic woes during the pandemic, however, are now contending with a surge in crime that has forced Southern California law enforcement agencies to create a task force solely focused on retail crime.
A building on North Bedford Drive remains closed after Rite Aid moved out earlier this year.
The new task force is composed of the LA Police Department, the LA County Sheriff’s Department, along with the US Marshals Apprehension Task Force and the FBI Apprehension Task Force.
The effort features 22 full-time investigators and was formed the same day a Los Angeles Macy’s was raided by a group of masked thieves in hooded sweatshirts.
As police crack down on these types of “flash mob” burglaries, officers made at least nine arrests last week, including six thieves who robbed an East LA Nike store.
There have been 9,455 burglaries reported in LA as of Aug. 26, less than a 3% drop from the same time last year but still up more than 14% since 2021, according to the LAPD’s most recent data.
The once-popular NikeTown store in Beverly Hills remains empty
Along with the retail crime task force, California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the state would be tapping California Highway Patrol resources to stamp out theft in LA.
“The state is investing hundreds of millions of dollars to crack down on organized crime and when our local partners need further assistance, we’re ready with a helping hand,” Newsom said in a release.
CHP’s Organized Retail Crime Task Force, which was established in 2019, has arrested more than 1,250 people and recovered more than $30 million in stolen merchandise since its creation, the governor’s office said, according to KTLA.
