‘I survived the pandemic, but I’m not surviving the crime’

A San Fernando Valley business owner is out thousands of dollars worth of merchandise after burglars broke into one of her stores Wednesday night, the latest in a string of crimes she claims is forcing the closure of her company.

Evette Ingram of Evette’s Beauty Supply said bandits stood outside her Tarzana store as if waiting for a bus, then broke in through a window before making off with about $25,000 worth of merchandise.

This store, the Tarzana location, has been broken into six times, but Ingram said her other four locations have also been burgled.

Ingram said she’s closing down all of her stores, a decision that was “very, very hard.”

“This is my passion. I started this business to create generational wealth for my children and my granddaughter, so it’s hard closing, it’s bittersweet, but it’s taken a toll on my health,” she said. “I found out that I’m diabetic, I have high blood pressure, because all of my focus went on my stores and not on my body.”

While her stores made it through the COVID-19 pandemic — including four that opened during the lockdowns and restrictions put in place in Southern California — “crime has gotten worse,” making her businesses impossible to operate, she said.

“I survived the pandemic, but I’m not surviving the crime,” she said.

Ingram said she’s “not really sure” what comes next for her, but she added that she has “to focus on my health.”

“I have to be here for my granddaughter,” she said.