Good Stuff restaurant owner Cris Bennet took down his Strand livestream camera after fake bomb threats triggered two police evacuations over the summer and cost him thousands of dollars in lost business.

The camera on The Strand in Hermosa Beach had broadcast a stretch of the beachfront walkway for more than 25 years, showing tourists, bikers and 13th Street volleyball players to viewers worldwide. Bennet said the camera came down in early September as a safety precaution, Easy Reader News reported.

The cause was swatting, a criminal hoax in which someone places a fake 911 call to trigger a heavy police response at an unsuspecting location. Hermosa Beach police Sgt. Keaton Dadigan, the department's public information officer, said callers watched the livestream in real time, described a specific person visible on camera and claimed that person carried a bomb.

The first threat came July 7. Police evacuated businesses along The Strand from the pier north to Noble Park at 14th Street at about 8:30 a.m. Gardena police brought bomb-sniffing K-9s. They found nothing.

A second threat hit Aug. 30. Officers evacuated Good Stuff at 1 p.m. and asked Bennet to cover the camera. He closed for the rest of the day.

Police confirmed the camera was the target through a simple test: when officers covered the lens during a call, the caller grew angry and hung up.

"I probably will never get it back up to be honest," Bennet told Easy Reader. "It's not worth getting closed down on a weekend day."

Good Stuff's camera focused on pedestrians, unlike the surf cam at nearby HG Grill. Bennet said that made his restaurant a more attractive target because callers could describe someone on screen to make a threat sound credible.

Swatting has hit other South Bay gatherings. A fake bomb threat on May 3 forced an evacuation of the Redondo Beach Pier during BeachLife Festival. ABC7 Los Angeles reported police found no threat.

Hermosa Beach police do not have enough staff to handle these calls alone. Dadigan said the department pulls in officers from El Segundo, Redondo Beach and other agencies for each response. He said detectives can pursue search warrants and trace IP addresses to identify callers, even when threats originate from across the country.

The investigation remained open as of Sept. 9. Bennet said he hopes to restore the camera someday but fears the threats would follow. "I can't afford it," he said.