Store in Posh Beverly Grove Neighborhood Bans Masks Due to Shoplifting

Kitson, a posh store in the Beverly Grove area of Los Angeles, California, has banned the wearing of masks on the premises due to the risk of shoplifting.

In an Instagram post late last week, the store’s ownership said:

[Mayor] Eric Garcetti, [Governor] Gavin Newsom, and [L.A. County District Attorney George] Gascon are clueless what obstacles businesses have to overcome to protect their staff and assets of their business. We need to see the faces of the criminals. Please pass this along and hope other businesses will follow. We can accommodate private shopping before we open for patrons that still want to shop. Please shop at Kitsonlosangeles.com if you feel more comfortable. Stay safe everyone.

 

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A post shared by KITSON LA (@kitsonlosangeles)

Los Angeles, like other cities, has seen a rash of “mass looting” robberies, in which flash mobs target high-end retail stores, often while wearing the masks that became ubiquitous during the coronavirus pandemic.

The store has previously criticized local authorities and celebrities publicly over their indifference to the damage caused to retail stores by the Black Lives Matter riots in 2020.

“I’m neither Democrat or Republican. I’m just stating what’s affecting small businesses,” owner Fraser Ross told Breitbart News at that time. “I didn’t see one celebrity come and help do clean up [after the BLM riots]. They stayed in their houses and watched TV. We need to out these celebrities.”

Masks are still commonly seen in Los Angeles, where shoppers are accustomed to strict coronavirus restrictions, though the county recently declined to re-impose an indoor mask mandate.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.