RIOT AFTERMATH : Even Minimal Damage Leaves Fear in Its Wake

Early last Friday morning, Jocelyn Hahn came to her Silver Lake flower shop, packed up all her plants, flower arrangements, vases and balloons, and took them to her Glendale home.

The previous night--in the heat of the rioting that followed the verdicts in the Rodney G. King case--looters had devastated a Radio Shack in the same Sunset Boulevard mini-mall where Hahn has her shop. Concerned that her business could suffer the same fate, Hahn called several family members and friends to help her clear everything out.

“We want to make it look like there is no one here,” the 24-year-old florist said, as she hastily wrapped a large glass vase in a damp Korean-language newspaper. “I think it’s better to do it that way than to sit here and wait for something to happen.”

The Glendale area weathered the storm of violence virtually unscathed and, after the tense calm of the weekend, Hahn returned to Silver Lake on Monday morning. Her shop was spared, but with her merchandise in bags and boxes--and the televised and real images of destruction seared in her mind--Hahn said nothing felt normal.

“I’ve seen so many places burned down and destroyed; I’m kind of numb right now,” the florist said.

Like most of Los Angeles, residents and merchants in the Northeast area and Glendale tried to resume their usual routines this week. But most agreed that the looting and rioting last week still weighed heavy on their minds.

Compared to other parts of the Los Angeles area, where hundreds of buildings were burned or looted, Northeast Los Angeles sustained fairly minimal damage, Los Angeles Police Lt. Steve Twohy said.

Only one business was burned down--a Payless Shoe store at Vermont Avenue and Santa Monica Boulevard.

In Eagle Rock, an 1894 two-story Queen Anne house designated as a city historic monument was also burned down. The house, at Eagle Rock and York boulevards, was one of the four oldest buildings in the community.

About a dozen area businesses were looted, including several stores along Vermont Avenue in East Hollywood; the Circuit City and Crown books at Sunset Boulevard and Fountain Avenue; two Radio Shacks in Silver Lake, and two clothing stores and a shoe store in Echo Park. A few shops along Figueroa Street in Highland Park suffered minor vandalism.

“Our division is in pretty good shape,” Twohy said early this week.

Glendale businesses sustained even less damage--just shattered windows at three stores, authorities said.

Police reported only two incidents of riot-related violence in the area. A 25-year-old looter was shot and killed Thursday night at Vermont Avenue and Santa Monica Boulevard by a merchant guarding his business. And a man who tried to stop a group of looters near Sunset Boulevard and Normandie Avenue was badly beaten.

For those area merchants and residents who wanted to forget this week, reminders were everywhere.

A group of National Guardsmen in two Humvees were hunkered down in the parking lot of the Pioneer Market on Sunset Boulevard on Monday, eating Popsicles, cookies and other food given to them by grateful merchants.

Many stores along Sunset Boulevard had boards covering shattered windows.

And then there was the sight of looters walking around the neighborhood.

“I have seen people walking down the street wearing clothes that I know that they stole from my store,” said Echo Park clothing store owner Eddie Herbst, who lost about half his inventory. “But we’ve already decided we will not take any return or exchanges without a receipt. And no free alterations without a receipt either. If they stole the wrong size, too bad.”

Although Glendale was spared, Lynn Baron, owner of Le Jardin, a women’s clothing store, said: “You could not help but look at what was going on in L.A. and realize it certainly could have been here too.”

There was no curfew in the city over the weekend, but many restaurants and businesses along Brand Boulevard closed early anyway. And this week, Baron said that many of her manufacturers have called to tell her that they will not be able to make deliveries for awhile.

“It’s amazing how much fallout there really was to us,” Baron said. “L.A. is very pivotal to all of us.”

Ron Kim, manager of Big Mac’s Liquor in a Silver Lake mini-mall, said that, because of last week’s tragic events, he intends to keep a gun in the store at all times.

“I’m against guns because they cause trouble,” he said. “But I went out to buy one Monday, and I’ll be picking it up in 15 days” after the permit process is completed.

Last Thursday, Kim said, he watched in horror as neighborhood youngsters stole electronics equipment from the Radio Shack store next door.

“They came in here the next morning, and I told them, ‘You’re worthless. What are you going to be when you grow up?’ ” Kim recalled. “They were just laughing.”

After that, Kim and store owner Jay Paik spent Friday and Saturday night patrolling the mini-mall with shotguns to scare potential looters.

Echo Park merchants said the damage to their businesses would almost certainly have been worse if it had not been for the efforts last Thursday night of Jesse Caballero, a gang-member-turned-florist who summoned his friends to form a squad to patrol and protect the area.

Caballero, 32, a former Echo Park gang member who sports tattoos, a gold earing and a heavy gold chain, owns Los 2 Caballeros flower shop on Sunset Boulevard, a block east of Echo Park Boulevard.

On Thursday afternoon, as tension mounted, he closed and went home to his family. But about 5 p.m., the florist said, he decided he should go back.

“I told my wife, ‘I don’t feel comfortable. I think something’s gonna go down,’ ” he recalled.

When he arrived in the area, Caballero said he saw a large group of youths trying to break into stores.

From a pay phone, he summoned about 20 friends--including some gang acquaintances--to help him drive the crowd away. Armed with baseball bats and some guns, the group of men drove away the looters, and then patrolled the area all night.

Despite the relative calm of this week, Caballero said he fears the problems may not be over.

“A lot of people are saying that they are just waiting for the National Guard to go, to start again,” he said.

Many Echo Park merchants and residents said they hope the Guard will remain for a while, until the situation has settled down. No official pullout date for the troops has yet been announced.

“It’s the only way that we can maintain order,” said Manuel Carcamo, 32, an immigrant from El Salvador who said he thought the Guardsmen should stay at least a month.

Orelia Ramirez, who helps her sister run the Panaderia Celaya, said she had been giving the Guardsmen coffee and pastries from the bakery as a show of support.

“I want them here a long time,” she said.

Meanwhile, others had to contend with cleaning up their devastated businesses.

Glendale resident Carl Hazarian’s optical shop in a Hollywood mini-mall was destroyed when an ammunition store above it caught fire Thursday.

Despite his estimated $82,000 loss, Hazarian spent Sunday water-skiing with friends on Pyramid Lake. On Monday, the optician returned to his store to begin the process of salvaging what remained. Although he was saddened by the violence, Hazarian said he was optimistic about the future. To explain, he paraphrased Rudyard Kipling.

“If, within one day, you see your lifetime achievement destroyed before your very eyes, and if, with no complaint or a whisper, you can pick up a shovel and start to rebuild, then you will be a man, my son,” he said. “That’s what I have been telling myself.”

As they tried to get back to normal, even business owners who suffered no losses said they were grappling with the sense that something must be done to alleviate the myriad problems that led to the violence and destruction.

“I am very much aware and on guard,” said Johnnie Chitjian, owner of Johnnie’s Dream, a Silver Lake antique shop. “Anybody with any sense is still going to be a little leery. But everybody should realize why this happened, and plan for a better future for everyone.”

At Obsessions, a Silver Lake shop specializing in American Indian artifacts and jewelry, owner Horst Altheimer created a window display Monday with hand-painted paper cutout dolls representing people of all races.

Above the dolls, Altheimer placed a sign echoing the words of Rodney G. King. It read:

“Can we all get along?”