Car crashes into Coast Hardware in Laguna Beach

A local business was forced to shut its doors for the day after a vehicle drove through the northern wall of Coast Hardware in Laguna Beach on Monday morning.

Laguna Beach police responded to a call regarding a traffic collision into a building at about 10:43 a.m., according to the department’s daily log.

Pictures of the apparent accident showed a white Tesla had breached the wall facing the onsite parking for the business, which is located at 240 Broadway St.

A wall is boarded up outside the parking lot at Coast Hardware, where a car crashed into the Laguna Beach business on Monday.

(Don Leach / Staff Photographer)

“I was standing at the center aisle, and I thought shelving had come down,” Jim Nienhouse, an employee who works in the paint department of the store, said. “I thought shelving was collapsing or a light fixture or something, but then the noise kept getting louder.

“I saw [an employee] … go darting past, and she was like, ‘A car came through the wall,’ and she went over to check, to see and make sure there was nobody under the rubble, and then we both went outside and found the lady standing next to her car, with the car halfway into our wall.”

Store employees speaking about the incident Tuesday said no one was hurt as a result of the crash. Laguna Beach police were not immediately available to comment on the collision.

A car crashed into the side of Coast Hardware in downtown Laguna Beach Monday, punching a hole in the wall and startling employees and customers.

(Don Leach / Staff Photographer)

The vehicle crashed into a section consisting largely of lumber, narrowly missing the paint wall by a matter of a few feet.

When asked if the damage could be quantified, store manager David Alfie said, “No, because … we lost business for the whole day. That hurt worse than anything this time of year. … The shelves that everything was on, that’s probably our next biggest loss right there. Probably around $5,000 just for the shelves, if we’re lucky.”

Coast Hardware, which Alfie said is owned by a Corona del Mar family whose name he did not disclose, was back in business Tuesday. The outside wall had been boarded up, while the lumber section had been coned off inside.

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