A 35-year-old man was shot in the abdomen during an attempted robbery at a Los Angeles smoke shop early Wednesday, and the gunman sped off in a white BMW without taking a single item from the store. The shooting happened at about 1 a.m. near 2703 West Eighth Street, close to South Hoover Street, in the Westlake neighborhood.
Los Angeles police and fire personnel responded to reports of a shooting at that address, according to MyNewsLA.com. Arriving officers found the victim suffering from a gunshot wound, and Los Angeles Fire Department paramedics rushed him to a hospital. As of the report, his condition remained unknown, and it was still unclear whether he was a customer or an employee of the smoke shop.
No Property Taken, Suspect Still at Large
Despite the violence, police say the attempted robbery came up empty — no property was taken from the store before the suspect fled the scene in the white BMW. Investigators have not released a detailed description of the shooter, and no arrests had been announced as of Wednesday's report.
The case adds to a string of similar incidents that have hit Southern California smoke shops in recent months. In June, a smoke shop worker in Santa Monica was shot in the leg during an early-morning armed robbery at Smoke World before two suspects fled in a dark-gray Dodge Charger; Hoodline previously reported on a similar Santa Monica shooting. Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles also secured convictions in 2024 against a robbery crew that used a white four-door sedan as a getaway vehicle while masked suspects hit smoke shops and convenience stores across the region.
Why Smoke Shops Keep Getting Hit
Security industry data and law enforcement reporting show that smoke shops and dispensaries across Southern California face heightened risks of late-night break-ins and armed robberies, largely because they tend to carry high volumes of cash and hard-to-trace products, according to Valley Alarm. Federal banking restrictions leave many cash-heavy retail operations especially vulnerable to this kind of targeting.
The Westlake shooting comes even as citywide violent crime has been trending downward. The LAPD reported in its 2025 Annual Crime Data Report, released in February, that homicides across Los Angeles dropped 19 percent in 2025 compared to the year before, reaching the lowest annual total since 1966, according to the City of Los Angeles. Separate LAPD statistics released in August 2025 showed citywide robbery incidents had fallen 6.8 percent year-over-year, with total person crimes down 13.8 percent.
What the Shooter Could Face If Caught
Under California Penal Code Section 211, robbery is defined as taking someone's property against their will through force or fear, and it is charged strictly as a felony under state law, according to Eisner Gorin LLP. A commercial robbery like this one, which doesn't involve an inhabited dwelling, an ATM, or a transit vehicle, falls under second-degree robbery per Penal Code Section 213, carrying a state prison sentence of two, three, or five years, per the Hedding Law Firm.
If the shooter is ever identified and convicted, the stakes climb sharply because a gun was fired. California's so-called “10-20-Life” statute, Penal Code Section 12022.53, adds a mandatory consecutive sentence enhancement of 20 years in state prison for intentionally discharging a firearm during an attempted robbery — a number that jumps to 25 years to life if the gunfire causes great bodily injury. Judges do have some discretion here: since the 2017 passage of Senate Bill 620, trial judges have had the authority to strike or dismiss those firearm enhancements in the interest of justice, according to the Shouse Law Group.
For now, the identity of the person who ran off in the white BMW remains an open question, as does the extent of the victim's injuries and his connection to the smoke shop. Anyone with information on the shooting is encouraged to contact LAPD.
