BLUE LINE JOURNAL : Passengers Put Business on Right Track for Some Merchants Near Route

Four times since the trains began rolling, restaurant manager Dennis Schroeder has been forced to go out in a station wagon for supplies: canned goods, potatoes, fresh fruit, carry-out cartons. His Norm’s Restaurant, just steps from a new Blue Line stop at Long Beach Boulevard and Pacific Coast Highway, has been so crowded that he is considering new hires and possibly even a take-out menu.

“Normally, I don’t make any trips” for supplies, Schroeder said Wednesday as he stood outside his busily swinging doors and watched passengers line up for the morning Blue Line to Los Angeles. “Our ordering department is pretty good. But when you do business you don’t anticipate, you run out of things.”

He grinned. “People ride the train and want to come in for dessert. It’s kind of a celebratory atmosphere . . . like a party day.”

The restaurant, located in a cluttered commercial strip of pawn shops and empty storefronts in Long Beach, is just one of many establishments that hope for a long and lucrative association with the Blue Line. If all works out, commuters will rediscover Long Beach as a tourist city, taking the Blue Line to the beach, the Queen Mary and elsewhere--and stopping at Norm’s on the way. At least that is Schroeder’s vision.

Already, he said, transit security patrols and bright new lights at the Blue Line station have transformed a neighborhood that some would-be diners avoided at night.

Yet, any lasting symbiosis of trains and merchants along the 19-mile route may take years to develop--in part because the 19-mile route passes through many of Los Angeles’ grittiest industrial areas and economically deprived communities.

A passenger traveling Wednesday with $40 in his pocket and a yearning for good food and shopping bargains found instead only a sprawl of warehouses, poor neighborhoods, empty lots, boarded shops, doughnut stands and fast-food franchises.

A few fast-food proprietors said they were doing better, and larger commercial developments were still scrambling to open. Outside the Del Amo station, a colorful hot-air balloon heralded the “grand opening” of the “Del Amo Gigante Swap Mall,” a sprawling warehouse containing the “No. 1 indoor swap meet in the USA . . . 10,000 items under one roof . . . used car, beer, watermelon, jewery (sic), TV, radio, lottery ticket. . . . “

Or so said the posters in the window. Hanging on the locked doors, however, were red tags saying, “Condemned . . . 7/16/90 . . . Los Angeles County Fire Department.”

Neither fire officials nor the proprietor could be reached for comment.

Across the nearly empty street, manager George Vangelatos of Del Amo Charbroiled Burgers reported that the trains were making no appreciable difference in the number of burgers and breakfast plates he was selling.

“Maybe 5% to 10% more,” he said, “but it’s not really noticeable.”

The Compton station is still bordered by large vacant lots, including one dusty site marred by a burned-out supermarket. But change is on the way: Builders are now completing the publicly financed, 30,000-square-foot Compton Transit Center adjacent to the train stop. The terminal will help train passengers connect to local buses and taxis and will also feature retail shops, according to the city’s community planning coordinator, John Johnson.

Next door to that, a new K mart is going up, largely because of the expected business from the Blue Line, Johnson said.

On Florence Avenue in South Los Angeles, aging storefronts contain merchants catering to a mostly Latino clientele. One of those merchants is Maria Luisa Benites, whose store, Jardines Botanicos de Oaxaca No. 2, specializes in medicinal herbs, vitamins, perfumes and religious paintings of Christ and various saints.

Benites has been operating the store four years. She is especially proud of her selection of herbs--150 varieties of plants: Azahar and Flor de Manita to take for sleeplessness, Pulmunar leaves to boil and drink with honey for asthma. The wares are kept in plastic bags and in large plastic buckets on her shelves.

“There are more people” coming in, she said. “Everybody wants to ride (the Blue Line). I happy.”

But she is also afraid--worried that the fancy new trains will bring fancy new construction. “Some people told me they are going to tear (down) the building,” she said. “I talked to the (building) owner, but he don’t say anything.”

As the train rolls into the inner-city, commercial establishments are more easily found. A few have found the Blue Line a blessing; others have encountered unexpected problems. Maria Martini, owner of graffiti-covered Continental Deli at Washington Boulevard and Broadway, has seen little, if any, new business. Worse yet, with double train tracks now going down the middle of Washington, street parking is now illegal.

Consequently, Martini has difficulty getting deliveries from Coca-Cola and Frito-Lay. The Frito-Lay driver has had two tickets since the no-parking zone was created a few months ago, and he refuses to bring potato chips.

“I have to call and call and call,” she said, gesturing to a half-empty rack. “They said it would be better for us (with the Blue Line), but I see nothing.”

For the most part, though, shop owners seem satisfied. Joel Rosenfeld, who started Joel Rosenfeld & Company Close-Outs three years ago, said the Blue Line station at Washington Boulevard and San Pedro Street is quickly transforming his business. Until now, Rosenfeld was strictly a wholesaler, selling apparel to Woolworth’s, Newberrys and other lower-end stores across the country.

On Saturday, he became a retailer as well. He put a banner out front and sold Blue Line specials: T-shirts at two for $5 and swimsuits at $3.90 apiece.

The crush of business is making up for the two years of railway construction, when his customers couldn’t get in the front door.

“It was exciting to see all those people,” Rosenfeld said, grinning. “It was like Disneyland. This street . . . looked like Times Square.”