WEST HOLLYWOOD—With the 2020 Presidential election looming, owners of businesses are already expecting the worst by boarding up their windows to prevent any possibility of looters breaking in, stealing merchandise and destroying the insides of stores.
This is what occurred after George Floyd was killed, where scores of people all over Los Angeles County took advantage of civil unrest, and stole millions of dollars in merchandise. After the damage had mostly been done, some owners did the best they could to keep their situations from getting worse by finally boarding up their windows.
As for preventative measures, some store owners say it could cost upwards of somewhere around $10,000 for not only installing security cameras, but purchasing more insurance and night security, as well. The latter option would potentially be on a temporary basis, since the need for physical security guards would be on high demand everywhere.
As for insurance rates, those costs could certainly skyrocket, because of the exorbitant amount of financial damages that each company would have to cover. Once again, the cost for such preventative measures will be on the higher end, because of demand.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department is not making any recommendations, letting owners decide on their own what they want to do. With the high likelihood of protestors, police officials won’t promise that their crowd prevention tactics will work, as many have seen how large protests have the potential to get out of control.
Deputies in LA county already started going on high alert Sunday, November 1, with extra patrol units being deployed in West Hollywood on Halloween, in case anything of significance would have happened on that night.
Celebrations in West Hollywood were already canceled ahead of schedule, and just for safety precautions, steel barriers were also put in the streets to keep people from roaming into parts of the city they weren’t permitted to be.
