RIOT AFTERMATH : Fewer Than Expected Seeking Government Help in Starting Over : Business: Officials say those who want aid are getting it already. Some merchants disagree, citing cumbersome paperwork.

When only 15 people showed up at the “Small Business Recovery Fair” for Long Beach business people affected by the riots, city officials tried to put the best face on it.

They said the low turnout must mean that most of the estimated 400 Long Beach businesses damaged in the riots already are getting all the government help they need, and that the post-riot rebuilding of Long Beach is proceeding apace.

Others aren’t so sure.

“Hopefully, this is good news,” said Jerry Miller, economic development bureau manager for the city of Long Beach, as he looked around the large room at the Long Beach Convention Center where the recovery fair was being held--a room virtually empty except for about 30 representatives of various government agencies who were waiting to answer questions and provide help to riot-affected business people.

“I have to believe that this means the vast majority of the business people who need help and want help already have come forward to seek help,” Miller said.

There are several indications, however, that more than two months after the riots, many damaged Long Beach businesses are not receiving government help, and that the recovery is, at best, moving slowly.

Although 30 Long Beach buildings were severely damaged or destroyed in the riots, as of last week only two permits to repair or rebuild the structures had been issued.

Only 137 Long Beach businesses--slightly more than a third of those believed affected by the riots--have applied for Long Beach city grants of up to $2,000. Of those, 87 have been approved and the rest are pending.

Nearly 400 applications for federal Small Business Administration “physical loss” loans were passed out to Long Beach businesses in the wake of the riots. With less than a month left before the Aug. 15 filing deadline, only 94 have been returned.

SBA spokeswoman Diane Brady said applications for the 4% interest loans are being returned “more slowly than usual,” but she expects 60% to 70% of business people who have applications to return them by the deadline. She attributed the slow return rate to the difficulty in reconstructing records for businesses damaged by fires, to possible misunderstandings about the loans and to simple procrastination.

“Historically, we tend to get a lot of applications right at the deadline,” she said.

But some Long Beach business people say the problem lies with the loan application process.

“I’m ready to pass out and faint,” said Hilda Kelly, 37, whose antique store on Cherry Avenue--called Kelly’s Place--was looted of 90% of its merchandise on the second night of the riots. “My (SBA) loan application is 47 pages long.”

(The actual SBA form is 17 pages long, but applicants are asked to list their losses, which may require many additional pages.)

In a complaint that was echoed by other business people, Kelly said it was particularly difficult for her to fulfill SBA requirements that she document the value of all the merchandise she lost.

“When you’re dealing with antiques and collectibles, it’s really difficult to say what’s worth what,” said Kelly, whose application for a $40,000 SBA loan is still being processed. “I’m a real small business, but they (the SBA) are treating me like a big business” in terms of the paperwork required for a loan.

Jerry Johnson, 40, said his music store on East 7th Street--Jerry’s Music Box, Home of the Hot Hits--was “100% looted.”

“It took me two months to fill that thing (an SBA loan application) out,” Johnson said. “You have to get this. You have to get that. Hey, we weren’t some big company. We just had a little mom-and-pop operation.”

Thang Tran and Ta Khan of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, who work with the Long Beach Vietnamese and Cambodian communities, respectively, both said that many Asian-American business people just don’t want to go through the official loan process.

“They may say the applications are too complicated,” Khan said. “If they have a business and they’ve reopened it, they don’t have time. They’d have to take the application to their accountant, and that costs money. They may just want to do it on their own.”

Others may simply opt for non-conventional financing.

“In the Vietnamese community,” Tran said, “if they need money they borrow it from their friends” through the informal lending associations common in Asian communities. Khan said the same is true in the Cambodian community.

Brady of the SBA said that is fine with her.

“If they can take care of their business without going to the government, that’s fine,” she said.

Another possible reason that many businesses are not applying for government help, officials and business people say, is that they don’t want to supply the detailed financial information required by the SBA. Businesses that were initially financed through non-conventional means, and have never gone through a conventional loan process, might be intimidated by the scrutiny--especially if they were a little lax, or very lax, in tax matters.

“Maybe some people are reticent to come forward because they weren’t operating aboveboard, or completely aboveboard,” Miller said.

There also seems to be a perception among business people--a misperception, SBA officials say--that SBA loans are particularly difficult to get, or are a matter of luck.

“I don’t have my hopes up at all,” Johnson said. He added that he knows several people who were turned down for SBA loans, but on the other hand, “I know people who got loans who I wouldn’t have let write a check in my store.”

Brady says that business people “shouldn’t be afraid of the SBA. We are much more flexible than a normal bank.”

Out of the 57 “physical loss” loan applications from Long Beach businesses that have been processed so far, 45--about 75%--have been approved, with the average loan being $82,600, she said. (The Long Beach approval rate is roughly the same as for Los Angeles County, Brady said.)

The remaining applications were denied “primarily because of a lack of ability to repay,” Brady said.

Despite criticism that the SBA and other agencies weren’t doing enough to reach out to help riot victims, Brady, Miller and other officials said that they want to help those businesses that want help. The purpose of the recovery fair was to gather together for one last time the many government agencies--ranging from the Internal Revenue Service to the SBA to the county Board of Mental Health--that could provide help out riot-affected businesses.