(Photo: Kip’s Toyland)
Kip’s Toyland has been selling toys at the Original Farmers Market since 1956. Sadly, they now have another distinction: one of those WTF stories that leaves you asking what is wrong with people?!
Somebody broke in at 4:22 Saturday morning and stole the Legos.
Not just any Legos, either. Surveillance footage shows the creepy masked suspect shattering a display window, walking straight to the shelves with the store’s most expensive sets, clearing the top row, and walking back out. The whole thing was over in a flash. The stolen sets ran somewhere between $2,000 and $3,000. The fact that he knew exactly where to go makes the story even creepier. He’d clearly cased the place beforehand and likely with kids all around. Or worse, did they have a kid in tow when they cased the place prior as a decoy of sorts. The mind boggles when it wanders to what makes bad people do bad things.
Employee Andrei Amodia got to work around 10 a.m. Saturday and found what was left behind. “I was in shock,” he told KTLA’s Jillian Smukler. Manager Jay Ortiz took stock of the damage. “They literally went for the top shelf,” he told CBS Los Angeles. “It has all the more expensive ones. He took the entire shelf off.”
In another detail that leaves you asking what’s going on here, owner Lilly Kipper said no one from building security called to tell her what happened. She called LAPD herself. By 7 p.m. Saturday night, nearly 15 hours after the break-in, officers still hadn’t shown up to take a report. LAPD eventually told KTLA they’d get there. No timeline was given.
81 Years of History Didn’t Protect It
Kip’s Toyland is the oldest toy store in LA, and the history behind it is the kind of story Hollywood screenwriters would have whipped up if it weren’t true. Founder Irvin “Kip” Kipper flew B-17 bombers in World War II, got shot down over Bologna on his 26th mission, and spent months as a POW in Stalag VII, the camp that later inspired the film “The Great Escape.” When he got home in 1945, he opened a toy store because he wanted something happier for the rest of his life. Irvin passed away recently. His son Don and granddaughter Lilly now run it.
The store doesn’t sell anything that plugs in. Never has. That’s not by mistake either. In today’s age of kids lost to screens and electronics that’s pretty special if you ask me.
Ortiz didn’t try to spin what the break-in means for the business. “We’re just a small business trying to survive, so this was definitely a big hit on us,” he said. “I don’t know how we’ll recover from something like this or even want to push forward. Like, do we continue to carry Legos? Will we be continually targeted? Those are the questions we’ll have to ask, what merchandise do we want to carry.”
A Pattern West Hollywood Knows Well
The break-in at Kip’s fits the kind of targeted, calculated smash-and-grab that merchants across LA have been dealing with for years. West Hollywood’s own year-end crime data told a complicated story. Overall Part 1 crime dropped 12.28% in 2025 compared to 2024, 1,901 total incidents versus 2,167. That’s the good news. But strong-arm robberies more than doubled, climbing from seven incidents to 21, and arson tripled. Targeted crimes against businesses haven’t gone away. They’ve just gotten more efficient. Small businesses just can’t seem to get a break around here. When the madness end? Will it ever? Sadly, not likely when you have politicians with misguided principles and priorities.
LAPD is investigating. No suspect description has been released.
