Drummer Shot Dead in Nightclub Holdup : Studio City: Police say the band member’s hesitation in turning over his valuables to two masked gunmen may have cost him his life.

A musician was shot and killed early Wednesday when he hesitated in turning over his possessions to two masked robbers terrorizing a Studio City nightclub, police said.

The robbers burst into the Grecian Village restaurant at the 2 a.m. closing time, ordered about 25 patrons and employees to lie on the ground, then shot the 33-year-old drummer when he “just seemed to be reluctant to give up his property,” Los Angeles Police Lt. Ron LaRue said. “It happened real quick.”

Vartan Mouradian of Studio City, a member of an unnamed band that regularly performs with a belly dancer at the Greek restaurant, died at the scene of a single gunshot wound to the upper body, police said.

The robbers--one carrying a 9 millimeter pistol, the other a semiautomatic rifle--escaped in an older-model white Cadillac with $4,000 in property and proceeds from the restaurant at 3707 Cahuenga Blvd. West, just off the Hollywood Freeway, police said.

“This was the worst experience of my life,” said waiter Kiriakos (Sonny) Vamvakas, 36, who was among a group near the entrance to the second-story club when the two men stormed inside.

“They tell us, ‘Drop down, everybody, this is a robbery.’ . . . They told us to take our money out,” the shaken Vamvakas recalled. “They were asking for the manager.”

When no one immediately identified the manager, one of the men “came around and stepped on my head,” Vamvakas said. “He said, ‘I’m going to start shooting every one of you, you don’t talk . . . so I point where the manager is.”

Soon after the manager turned over the money in the cash register, “a big bang goes off,” Vamvakas said. The waiter said he didn’t see Mouradian do anything to resist the robbers.

“I think he was holding the drumsticks, they told him to put it down. . . . They had no reason to shoot him. He was just a drummer, a guy with two kids and a wife,” Vamvakas said.

“They were ugly, these men.”

Witnesses said the robbers continued to collect wallets after shooting Mouradian, then one said to the other: “Let’s roll. Let’s roll.”

There was still blood on the small stage late Wednesday afternoon.

Detectives are investigating possible links to a robbery two weeks ago in which two men forced their way into a Reuben’s restaurant in Northridge shortly before closing time and ordered about 10 patrons and employees to lie face down on the floor.

No one was injured in the Nov. 14 Reuben’s robbery, in which the pair got away with about $5,800 in cash and jewelry, police said.

“The description is basically the same,” Detective David Alfred said.

“Certainly we’re looking at that robbery and any additional robberies we can find that fit this particular pattern,” LaRue added.

Wednesday’s incident was the second shooting this year at the Grecian Village, which recently changed ownership. On April 30, then-owner Nikolaos Roussis wounded a Texas man who sat up with him all night drinking, then returned brandishing a screwdriver and tried to rob the restaurant.

Employees got little sleep Wednesday, as many stayed up until 9 a.m. being interviewed by detectives, then returned hours later to prepare for a new evening of customers.

“I was lucky,” said chef Gregoris Lafakis, smoking a cigarette outside the front door. One of the robbers put a gun to his back as he lay on the ground, he said.

“He said, ‘Give me the money.’ I said, ‘Take it.’ $350. Another guy, the piano player, they got $700 from him.

“My other friend, they kill. We were lucky.”