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OU EST LA TOILETTE? MainPlace/Santa Ana is...

By Helene Elliott and Danny Sullivan
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OU EST LA TOILETTE? MainPlace/Santa Ana is trying to become the United Nations of shopping malls. . . . Aiming at foreign tourists, the mall shuttles shoppers from nearby hotels, then provides them translators in 21 languages from Arabic to Vietnamese. . . . “Their questions are usually easy, like telling them where’s the restroom and explaining menus,” says a mall official. . . . An estimated 20% of mall sales come from tourists.

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Helene Elliott

Helene Elliott was with the Los Angeles Times’ Sports department from 1989 to 2024, first as a staff writer and then, starting in 2006, as a columnist. She became the first female journalist to be honored with a plaque in the Hall of Fame of a major professional sport as the 2005 winner of the Hockey Hall of Fame’s Elmer Ferguson Award, awarded to writers “who have brought honor to journalism and to hockey.” A native of Brooklyn, N.Y., and graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, she has covered 18 Olympics.

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