They were tired of the incessant shoplifting and mayhem.
Of COURSE they were accused of racism.
But what would you do if you owned a store, and KNEW you'd lose money to theft?
The store owners were left with a lose-lose situation.
The biggest problem was they created gridlock by cruising and basically just stopping their cars in the street and partying. Plenty of stories of weddings being cancelled and ambulances being unable to move the first two years, because, pre-internet, there just wasn’t any warning. The first year it was big, we had some folks come in, but they weren’t gonna pay $4 for apint of English beer. I remember one fellow though ask for a gin and juice, I asked what kind of juice and he said, I dunno, man, gin AND JUICE! I think that was the title of a Snoop Dog song popular at the time.