Supreme clothing store moving into former Tower Records building, concerning WeHo residents

LOS ANGELES - A Supreme clothing store will move into the former Tower Records building on Sunset Boulevard, but the move has some residents concerned.

Supreme sells exclusive, high-end street and skatewear clothing, but also has a reputation for bringing long lines, and rowdy crowds due to its limited supply drops.

The West Hollywood Heights Residents Association scheduled a Zoom meeting Thursday to hear about the plans for the store. The meeting included Aaron Green from Afriat Consulting Group, and West Rubenstein, the Senior Vice President for Supreme. Residents expected to raise concerns and questions in the meeting, but their mics were left muted, and they were not able to submit questions publicly in the chat, instead only being able to click on a link provided in the chat to submit questions. Residents said their questions went unanswered.

"It doesn't sound like they have good control over what's happening [at their stores], though the people from Supreme say they do. The city seems to be sort of bulldozing this through, totally ignoring most of our complaints or concerns," said Pamela Reilly, a resident.

Reilly said she has concerns after hearing about incidents at other Supreme locations.

"We hear a lot of bad things happening at the Supreme store on Fairfax. They have sales. They have people lining up days in advance. People are camping out. They're urinating in people's yards. There are fights. We don't really want that happening here," said Reilly.

Tony, another resident, has mixed feelings about the store moving into the neighborhood. He believes the store should offer perks to residents.

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"I'm excited but I'm also wary of Sunset becoming more of a mess so it's gonna be crazy over here, but at the same time, give me a raffle ticket if I'm a resident so I can come and enjoy my Supreme as well instead of just like moving in to the iconic Tower Records building and then causing a scene," said Tony.

Tony said he does like Supreme's clothing.

"[When I think of Supreme] I think of exclusive drops and limited editions. I work in luxury so I totally get the hype behind everything but at the same time, I think they can control it because with these drops come a lot of other things. We want the hype boys but at the same time, we don't want the violence, the fights and the robberies," said Tony.

In the Zoom meeting, Green from Afriat said Supreme has been working to control the long lines outside of stores.

"There are not large scale events thrown there and there are no flash mobs with overnight customer operations there," he said.

West Rubenstein, the Senior Vice President of Supreme, also defended the store's brand.

"I also saw some of the reports and some of the articles in the media and it's a little frustrating for us because it's factually untrue. A lot of very unfortunate incidents in Hollywood as of late have been conflated with how Supreme operates. We pride ourselves on running safe, clean shops, not just in LA but New York, the country and around the world," said Rubenstein.

The building will remain a single story for Supreme. Demolition is expected to start in February or March of 2022, and is expected to be completed in August.

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