Riot On Sunset Strip - 1966

​​From my book, Heartbreak Kid:

. . . Kitty corner from Cher’s boutique on Crescent Heights and Sunset was one of the other teenage nightclubs, Pandora’s Box. On November 12th, 1966, it was the site of the infamous Riot on the Sunset Strip, which the following year was epitomized by the film of the same name, with the title song performed by The Standells.

I ended up right in the middle of the riot. I was involved in a protest with other Hippies about the new curfew law that had just been imposed by the L.A. County Sheriff's Metro Squad, a special new police squad set up to try and control the Hippies on the Strip. Besides the curfew, they were threatening to change the admission age of all the teenage nightclubs on the Strip to try and stop us from attending, as a way to try and control us. They felt the Hippies had taken over the Strip and they, along with many local business leaders, didn't like it.

They had already boarded up Pandora's Box and it was slated for demolition, so we were there that night protesting! I was with some others who were right in front of Pandora's Box when the riot broke out. The police were hitting us with their billy clubs and trying to arrest us. A bunch of people started rocking the big police bus that was there to put Hippies in and haul us to the station. Some people actually turned it over on its side, then lit it on fire. I got scared and took off at that point, but it was all over the news the next day because of the bus being on fire.

Later on I heard that Stephen Stills had been there that night and wrote a song about the riot called, "For What It's Worth," for his band, Buffalo Springfield, which became a hit around the world and an instant Hippy anthem.
It became our rallying cry . . . "Somethin's happenin' here/What it is ain't exactly clear/There's a man with a gun over there/Tellin' me I've got to beware/Think it's time we stop/Children what's that sound/Everybody look what's goin' down" . . .