Nearly all the shops and pubs, including Sainsburys, were shut all day on Monday after rioters hit Crystal Palace late on Monday night and in the early hours of Tuesday.
On Tuesday the streets of Crystal Palace were strangely quiet, the only activity was glaziers putting boards over shops as locals gathered at the two open pubs to discuss the previous nights events and how to stop it recurring.
The Blockbuster video store in Westow Street was hit at and later, at 3 am, the jewellers in Church Road was raided.
Justin, a local landlord who did not want to give his full name, said: “At about 9.30pm there was a heap of guys in masks trying to get onto buses for Croydon, but they would not let them on the buses.”
The rioters then disappeared, but they returned to Crystal Palace later and tried to break into Blockbusters where brave residents tried to hold them off.
Justin said: “We heard they were breaking into Blockbusters at 10.30. Staff from pubs, locals and organizers from the Crystal Palace Festival went to help. It started off small, but got bigger and bigger.”
Laurence, a local barman who did not want to give his full name, said: “Later 25 to 30 of them came back and pushed us out of the way, they had a hammer and other weapons, there were only about 12-15 of us and we couldn’t do anything to stop them.
“I flagged down a police car before the big group came, but they said they could not stop.”
Laurence thought that people were deliberately going out to loot on a big scale. He said: “The only cars on the roads were white vans.”
Pub goers decided that Tuesday evening would not see a repeat of the previous night’s looting.
They decided that they would come out onto the streets to create a peaceful presence to put off potential looters. Laurence said: “We want to get people standing outside the shops.”
Fortunately the looters did not return and Crystal Palace was quiet on Tuesday night.
The police have CCTV pictures of the raiders stealing from the jewelers and are looking for help in tracing the men pictured.