Famous LA shopping center adds barbed-wire-like fence to deter smash and grabs

“…The shopping center has also heightened its security presence with additional personnel including off-duty police officers — but the fencing is a more novel addition to the options operators can choose from to protect their stores, experts say.

“The coil wire is a reasonably new technology in retail crime prevention,” said Mike Lamb, an expert in retail security and former vice president of asset protection and safety at Walmart (WMT), Home Depot and Kroger. “It looks like it’s designed to not cause injury, but [it] can tangle a person in it and slow down someone who is trying to get away quickly.”

The wire fencing in place didn’t fully deter a robbery at The Grove on November 22, when a group of 18 to 20 looters used sledgehammers and an electric bicycle to smash into the complex’s Nordstrom (JWN) store after hours. They managed to steal at least $5,000 of merchandise and cause $15,000 in damage, though police later recovered merchandise and arrested three people in connection with the burglary.

But a spokesperson for The Grove noted the fencing did help prevent the assailants from getting onto the shopping complex’s property by blocking the entrance to it: The Nordstrom store entrance that was damaged faced a public street and so that area was not protected by the barrier.

Additionally, all stores at The Grove have a special ballistic film coating exterior- and interior-facing windows, which helps fortify the glass in the event of a smash-and-grab type of crime. That film did make it more difficult for the Nordstrom assailants to break through the glass, giving law enforcement more time to respond.

Retailers all over the nation have been shaken by the spate of robberies…”