Santa Monica restaurants clean up day after unrest, face 1 p.m. curfew
Santa Monica restaurants and other businesses were ordered to close by 1 p.m. Monday the day after looting and vandalism in the city.
Restaurants along the Third Street Promenade, 4th Street and Main Street were hit Sunday during protests over the death of George Floyd while in police custody in Minneapolis. In chaotic scenes broadcast live on television and over social media, protesters were shot with rubber bullets and tear gas by police as businesses were broken into by looters nearby.
To protect the community, Santa Monica issued a 1 p.m. curfew for business districts as well as a citywide 4 p.m. curfew.
“We encourage residents to stay at home and businesses to close and send their employees home,” Santa Monica Police Chief Cynthia Renaud said in a video the city posted on Twitter
Several restaurants chose to just close for the day, including Birdie G’s, Cassia and Sidecar Donuts. It’s another financial hit for owners and chefs already struggling with the coronavirus pandemic and shutdown.
Birdie G’s posted a message on Instagram that said, “We look forward to helping this community heal, rebuild and strive for lasting change.”
Elephante, whose exterior was hit by graffiti, also chose to remain closed Monday, operations manager Rob Chislett said.
Others opened — for a few hours, anyway. Around 11:30 a.m., a line of customers waited to order food outside Heroic Deli next to the restaurant’s shattered front windows. The restaurant, one of the first to reopen for dine-in service Friday, welcomed customers into its dining room.
Many restaurants that were looted over the weekend spent Monday cleaning up, with assistance from volunteers who swept away broken glass and helped board up windows.
The smell of burning wood was still wafting from the broken windows at Sake House by Hikari, a popular Japanese restaurant on Santa Monica Boulevard. The restaurant was completely engulfed in flames Sunday afternoon; Monday morning, the restaurant’s front door remained shattered and its dining room a mess of broken glass and furniture.
At Sunnin Lebanese restaurant, owner Nicole Chammaa packaged plastic bins of labneh, grape leaves and sliced tomatoes. The night before, looters smashed in the front window, stole a laptop, an iPad and overturned plants. She planned to take the food to her Westwood location and close up the Santa Monica restaurant, possibly for good, she said.
The Sweetfin on Broadway was also badly damaged. Security footage posted by co-owner Seth Cohen on Instagram shows vandals breaking in through the front door, heading straight to the register, stealing a tablet and rummaging through drawers. The door at Sweetgreen on 4th Street was also demolished, leaving a trail of broken glass.
On the other side of the Promenade, windows were smashed at Ye Old Kings Head, a British pub and shop. Empty shoe boxes and trash were strewn across the sidewalk in front of the entrance. .
Less than 24 hours after L.A. County restaurants were told they could reopen for dine-in service, many were vandalized during citywide George Floyd protests.
The Water Grill along Ocean Avenue also was looted, its facade tagged with gold spray paint and its front door broken.
The front door window at Michael’s restaurant was smashed, but owner Chas McCarty remained hopeful, posting a photo of neighbors cleaning up the glass this morning.
“Feeling like we’re lucky for this one, given so many of our neighbors’ destruction,” MCarty wrote. “I don’t want to live in a world where my windows get broken, but I don’t want to live in a world where black people don’t feel safe.”
And despite social media reports that Bay Cities was looted Saturday night, the Italian deli and market received little damage. Owner Bob Garacochea said the front area, which was spray painted Sunday night, had already been covered over.
“We’re looking forward to a fresh start tomorrow,” he said.
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