SHERMAN OAKS : Record Store Installs Gate to Deter Looters

Along Ventura Boulevard in Sherman Oaks, two music stores were targeted by looters during the riots.

Cheryl Colburn, a shift manager at Tower Records, said looters smashed through the store’s back door with a crowbar and made off with about $500 worth of compact discs and a television monitor.

“They must have been here awhile, because they were actually picking out the CDs, not just grabbing the first ones they saw,” she said.

Colburn said the store has since installed a security gate at the rear entrance, which she said would make breaking in considerably more difficult.

At the nearby Guitar Center, store manager Peter Schuelzky said he lost an estimated $50,000 in merchandise during last year’s uprising after thieves rammed a car into the front door of his store. Stolen were two vintage electric guitars, a 1959 Gibson Les Paul and a 1955 Fender Stratocaster, valued at $25,000 each.

Schuelzky said he has since beefed up the security system, but declined to say how, adding, “I don’t want any would-be thieves to know what to expect if they come into the store this time.”