Biker Crackdown Puts Cafe in Slow Gear : Bikers: Owners of the Rock Store, a cafe and grocery that draws motorcycle enthusiasts, say they’re losing business because of a CHP roadblock aimed at stopping motorcycle racing on a stretch of Mulholland Highway.

Hare Kokkinos, a Northridge carpenter taking a break from his latest weekend motorcycle odyssey, stood outside the Rock Store and described how Sunday afternoons used to be at one of best-known biker pit stops in the world.

“This place was packed with metal; motorcycles were everywhere,” said Kokkinos, nodding at a long parking lot off Mulholland Highway that fronts the store about two miles south of Agoura Hills.

“It was wall-to-wall bikers.”

But lately, Sunday parking has been easy at the Rock Store, a small cafe and grocery that draws a wildly eclectic mix of middle-aged pleasure cyclists, Hells Angels and upscale “yuppie bikers,” including Hollywood figures such as comic Jay Leno and actor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Far fewer motorcyclists rumble in now, say the store’s owners, Ed and Veronica Savko, who blame a determined--and controversial--California Highway Patrol effort to stop motorcycle racing along the highway’s scenic but deadly curves.

For the last 10 weeks, the CHP has erected roadblocks every Sunday along a two-mile stretch of Mulholland about 200 yards west of the Rock Store. And although authorities say the tactic has eliminated racing, the Rock Store’s proprietors say it is strangling their long-established business.

“I’m down about 85%,” said Veronica, who with her husband has run the Rock Store for 28 years and is usually known simply as “Vern.”

“They’re trying to force us out of business,” Ed insisted. “You wonder if this is a police state or something.”

Sunday, several hundred motorcyclists showed up at the Rock Store for a bluegrass jam benefiting a bikers organization that opposes drunk driving. But many in the crowd also wanted to show support for the Savkos and to vent anger at the CHP.

“The Highway Patrol is not out for a good purpose,” snapped a middle-aged motorcyclist from Santa Monica who identified himself only as Joe.

“They totaled three patrol cars out here chasing motorcyclists,” he said, and that made the CHP angry.

In August the Highway Patrol began closing Mulholland, between Kanan Road and Seminole Springs Road, every Sunday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. to all but residents and those with business in the area. The roadblocks, which are to be lifted Oct. 29, were undertaken as a test program approved by Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich.

The CHP acted because racing “was just getting intolerable,” said Capt. Richard Kerri, commander of the patrol’s West Valley region.

Crashes and injuries were common--two or three each Sunday, Kerri said. On some Sundays, he said, as many as 200 people gathered at an overlook to watch the racers speed along the highway, a hilly, twisting road with eye-popping views of canyons. So numerous were bikers that some local residents were afraid to take their cars on the road, he said.

In response, the CHP began stationing two officers, one at each end of the roadblock, who stop bikers and tell them the road is closed. If the cyclists are trying to reach the Rock Store, they’re told of an alternate route, he said.

The action, Kerri said, has ended racing. “We have in effect taken the race track away from them,” he said.

However, the roadblock didn’t stop a large crowd from attending Sunday’s benefit. The store’s parking lot was dense with bikers checking out each other’s leathers and eyeing a gleaming fleet of Harley Davidsons, BSAs and Kawasakis. At least one Hells Angel was in attendance, along with a couple wearing black leather vests proclaiming them members of the Christian Motorcycle Assn.

The Savkos and many of their biker-customers agree that something needed to be done to slow down racers, especially young men--some in their teens--who favor high-powered “bullet bikes” that can rocket along at up to 160 m.p.h. Older bikers disparagingly refer to such riders as “squids” because, as one disapproving middle-aged cyclist put it, “they’re all over the road.”

But the Savkos and many Rock Store customers believe that roadblocks are an unnecessarily Draconian way to handle the problem. Racers could just as easily be controlled, they argue, by installing speed bumps or posting officers with radar guns along the road.

“No one questions the rationale for the roadblocks. But there is a question of if this is the right way to control speeders,” said Dean Rigsby, a schoolteacher who visits the Rock Store from his home in the Central Valley town of Manteca aboard a black Yamaha 920.

Kerri counters that Los Angeles County is reluctant to install speed bumps for fear of exposing the county to lawsuits from motorcyclists who might slip on them and crash. Speed guns would be ineffective, he added, because of the overwhelming number of bikers who formerly used Mulholland.

The Savkos also complain that CHP officers frequently harass customers at their store and at the roadblock, ticketing them for infractions such as crooked license-plate holders or inadequately muffled engines.

“Just crazy things. Just plain harassment,” said Veronica Savko.

The couple claims that contrary to Kerri’s assertion, officers at the roadblock don’t inform bikers of an alternate route to the Rock Store--only that Mulholland is closed.

Ed Savko contends that officers “don’t like my clientele,” wrongly believing they are trouble-making, greasy jeaned outlaws straight out of the movie “The Wild One.” Many Rock Store patrons, he and his wife said, are white-collar professionals: doctors, lawyers and entertainment-industry employees.

“The police can’t understand why there’s never any trouble here,” Veronica Savko said. “There’s no gangs. If the Hells Angels come up here, they take off their jackets.”

But Kerri said he has no ax to grind against the Savkos or their customers.

“I feel bad about their business. . . . They’re caught up in this and their business is suffering. It’s just fallout of our trying to prevent accidents out there,” he said.

While some nearby residents agree with the Savkos that the roadblocks are too harsh, others applaud them, saying the move has eliminated a major public safety problem.

“I saw many accidents from my driveway . . . saw these kids all broken up and dying,” said Lawrence Casey, a construction manager whose home is on Mulholland.

But, he said, racing “doesn’t exist now.”

“We’re so glad you’re here,” called a middle-aged woman to a CHP officer manning the roadblock Sunday, as she turned her car into a nearby mobile home park.

The Savkos claim that Antonovich backs the roadblocks because developers are pressuring him to get rid of the Rock Store and its leather-jacketed customers, fearing that they might scare off potential buyers of new luxury homes in the area.

But Leeta Pistone, an Antonovich aide, characterized that allegation as “absolutely false.”

“The kind of people that go up there are 99% family bikers,” she said. “They’re nice people. They’re not people Mike would want out of there.”

The supervisor decided to support the roadblocks after hearing that in a single Sunday, CHP officers were drawn into three high-speed chases with racers, Pistone said.

Although the racing problem has been quelled and the roadblocks are scheduled to be lifted, Kerri said they may be reimposed if daredevil antics resume.

In the meantime, longtime fans of the Rock Store hope it can survive the drop-off in business.

“This is a beautiful joint,” said actor Robert Blake, who for years rode a Harley Electraglide to the store but now travels aboard an Appaloosa.

“It’s an elegant place. To try and close it down is just the heartbreak of all time, ain’t it?”