According to Mr. Antonelli, his place was looted, graffitied, slashed, smashed and destroyed in a three and a half hour frenzy that began at 4:30 in the afternoon and concluded at 8 o'clock.
"We had video that showed 63 people participating in the carnage," he says sadly. "I found out later that the looters would go out the back door with their booty and go into to the parking garage were several vans were parked."
Of course, it all could have been prevented.
Right down the block at Pine Ave. and Broadway, there were 50 LB cops standing idly in formation waiting for orders from the LB police chief, the illustrious Mr. Robert Luna, that weren't given until the damage had already been committed.
"That's probably the hardest thing to accept the fact that it all didn't have to go down that way," says Mr. Antonelli.
We all now know what happened.
The LB mayor, Mr. Robert (Still Waiting For A Job Offer From The Biden Administration) Garcia allegedly told Mr. Luna to have his charges stand down, which certainly was the unfortunate case.
"I guess I turned out to be the sacrificial lamb," says Mr. Antonelli.
"They destroyed everything in my place and stole everything from $40,000 in fresh fish and meats for our re-opening to a lot of rare and expensive wines. It was horrible for me walking around afterwards in my place in which I had poured my entire life and heart into for 30 years, and seeing what had been done to it.
"At first, I didn't want to rebuild. I felt so hopeless and helpless. I spent 3.7 million dollars building L'Opera which we opened on April 19, 1990 on Grand Prix weekend. Everyone came -- the Andrettis, the Penskes, Paul Newman and many others. Great memories."
Those memories continued to pile up across the decades for Terry Antonelli at L'Opera, until that fateful May 31st evening last year when his place and many others in the Pine Ave. area were ransacked, causing so many proprietors so much anguish and heartache and financial ruin.
"After three or four days of deep contemplation after it happened, I decided I wasn't going to be defeated," says Mr. Antonelli, who was born in the tough Brooklyn area of Bensonhurst and who as a teenager moved to Southern California with his family. "I've always been a guy not afraid to accept a tough challenge, and I decided to fight and rebuild."
Blessedly, he has an insurance company that has been cooperative, but the renovation has been a slow process if for no other reason than Terry Antonelli wants the new L'Opera to be even more elegant than the original one.
"I'm going to keep it a secret, but wait until you see the new mural," he says. "What has been slowing us down a bit are the unique pair of double-doors we're installing at the two front entrances that cost 25,000 dollars. We're in a building that is a registered historic monument and so we had to go with the same kind of double doors that were in the original front facade. That's taken some time."
Terry Antonelli is hoping the re-construction is finished by mid March, and would like to re-open by early April, if inside dining is allowed.
"I'm not going to stick up a tent in front of L'Opera," he says. "First there isn't enough room. And, secondly, I want my customers eating inside to be able to savor the ambiance."
But he certainly is hoping his many pals in town in the restaurant industry do well when they finally are able to greet diners this week.
"Obviously, I'm overjoyed they're at least able to open to some extent," says Antonelli, who played football, baseball and basketball at Servite High and spent four years in the Army in its Criminal Investigation Division in Europe and Vietnam and various others locales. "I don't quite understand why they can't open up inside their restaurants when so many out in Orange County are doing so successfully. Just don't get it. But I truthfully don't understand a lot of things that are happening these turbulent days...."
