When a gunman opened fire at the Borderline Bar and Grill in Thousand Oaks on November 7, 2018, the community was thrown into shock.
Twelve people died in the attack on the Borderline Bar and Grill 8 years ago, as well as the gunman.
The Borderline never reopened, but a country music community in the Conejo Valley found a way through the shock and grief.
Candy Sherwin is teaching line dancing at the Masonic Lodge in Thousand Oaks. It’s a Thursday night, and it’s full with over 60 people in the middle of the dance floor. Chairs line the outer perimeter, but people rarely sit down. She’s taught line dancing and the two-step in the Conejo Valley for over 3 decades and taught at the original Borderline Bar and Grill from 1995 until that fateful day.
"Borderline meant the world to me," said Sherwin. "I mean, I'd been there for so long. I was the lead instructor there at the time, and I knew some of the people that lost their lives in the shooting."
"We were just a family. We still are a family; we're kind of nomadic, but we're still alive," she told KCLU.
Some of those practicing their steps were regulars at the Borderline too. We are only about a 7-minute drive from the bar, which on November 7, 2018, was the location of a mass shooting in which 11 patrons died, along with a police officer, Ron Helus, and the gunman.
"Candy is the general, the leader. She's the queen bee who has kept us all together as a Borderline family and all in the name of Borderline and what we had, because we all miss it," explained Mark Gajkowski. He was there that night, though he left before the incident.
"I had gone to the two-step lesson earlier that day. Later that day was college night. You know, I don't stay for college night because those guys are young. And I couldn't keep up with them if I tried!" he said.
Gajkowski says he could never imagine such a tragedy happening at the Borderline.
"Never. The appeal was the atmosphere, the dance floor, and the music, and then it was the people. We kind of decided as a whole that we were going to still continue. We didn't have the building anymore so we found elsewhere," he said.
Seven of those killed that night were college students. Another was a recent graduate. Young people on the verge of starting their adult lives, with bright futures ahead of them, which were cruelly stolen. Sherwin has found a way of bringing light — and a sense of community — back, despite the horrors of that night.
"I think that line dancing lives on because country music is still growing and we dance to other kinds of music and you don't need a partner. You can come, you can make friends and just continue like that," said Sherwin.
Another dancer, Randi Drasin, is wearing a black shirt which reads, Borderline Strong in white lettering. She was a Borderline regular and recalls the panic on the night of the shooting.
"My phone was blowing up in the middle of the night. I'm like, 'What is happening?' And it was all my relatives and family members like, 'Oh, my God, are you OK? You go to that Borderline place,'" she said.
"I'm getting the chills just thinking about it. One of my high school girlfriend's sons was there, and he stayed. He wouldn't leave. He told his mom, 'I'm not leaving. I'm getting people out.'"
Drasin added, "There was a lot happening because that happened, and the next night was our huge fire (the Woolsey Fire), and I had to be evacuated. So I was trying to process what happened at Borderline. I was also trying to figure out where to go, how to pack up my things, and how to grab my two cats. Trying to go to work, and I couldn't go. It was just, there was so much."
"We keep the Borderline name going," said Drasin. "I just felt like so part of a community, I wasn't in a relationship, and so my life revolved around working and my daughter and then dancing. It was really amazing, the support from the community around, like everybody wanted to be involved in fundraising and making sure that the families were taken care of and keeping that Borderline name alive."
Today, the original Borderline Bar and Grill remains closed and silent. This community can’t erase the horror of what happened, or forget those who lost their lives, but here, just 3 miles away, the music plays on. And step by step, it is moving forward together.
