Students to Get Slice of Profits From Pizzeria

The owners of a pizzeria have raised more than $1,500 for California college students operating an information network for fellow students involved in the pro-democracy struggle in China.

Danny Kong and Anita Chan, co-owners of the Numero Uno Pizzeria on Las Tunas Drive, donated the restaurant’s proceeds from Tuesday to a student group that has set up operations in Los Angeles at City Councilman Richard Alatorre’s field office in Boyle Heights.

A spokeswoman for the group, which consists mostly of students from UCLA, USC, Caltech and Cal State L.A., said the money will eventually be used for newsletters and for medical supplies to be sent back to China.

Why did the pizzeria owners donate the money?

“Because this is a time of civil war there and people are dying, especially the intelligent students,” said Kong, a Vietnamese immigrant of Chinese descent. “For the sake of humanity. This is my duty--to help people there.”

Kong said Tuesday had not been a particularly busy day for the pizzeria, which opened in San Gabriel seven years ago. “It was a normal day,” he said.

Alatorre has allowed the students to use a conference room and telephone lines in the Boyle Heights office to disseminate information to China. Another contributor donated a fax machine, said Brad Sales, Alatorre’s press secretary. The group has been sending news reports to fellow students in China, who do not have access to the Western media.