PANORAMA CITY : Laundromat Is Lone Survivor at Ravaged Mini-Mall

These days, the Clean Scene Laundry Center might be better called the Surreal Scene.

Inside the Panorama City Laundromat, there are plenty of customers. They use the machines, play the video games and buy nachos, pizza and hot dogs from a fast-food kiosk.

But from the outside, the view is desolately different. A year after a mob of 200 burned and looted stores at the intersection of Parthenia Street and Cedros Avenue, the Clean Scene is the only business still operating in the immediate area.

During the day, it stands alone in a mini-mall. On alternating nights, two storefront churches take turns holding services three doors away. Across the street, what was once home to a dental office and Smiley’s market is now a fenced-off, empty lot. “It’s not easy to be alone in a shopping center like this,” said Efin Flikshstein, manager of Clean Scene.

Business is not back to normal at the intersection just west of Van Nuys Boulevard. The stores here suffered riot damage estimated at more than $500,000--the worst at any San Fernando Valley location. The property once occupied by Smiley’s was the only one in the Valley so badly damaged by fire that it had to be demolished.

Some of the affected businesses have simply relocated. The San Carlo Deli, a fixture in Panorama City for 25 years, is now thriving in Chatsworth. Graciela’s Beauty Salon closed, but the owner is still operating her other parlor in Pacoima.

For several months after the riots, members of the Iglesia Evangelica Apostoles y Profetes were forced to hold services in each other’s homes. Now they are back in the mini-mall and have been joined by the Iglesia de Cristo Ministerios Llamada Final.

Zahava Gabay, leasing agent at Exclusive Realtors, said that a convenience store is negotiating for the San Carlo Deli’s location and a 99-Cent Store may take over the three other empty units.

But for the time being, Flikshstein is left soldiering on at the lonely Laundromat. He now closes the store at 8 p.m., two hours earlier than its former hours, because he says many of his customers are afraid to go out at night. The Clean Scene has also suffered a couple of break-ins since the riots, which he blames on the vicinity being deserted. “Nobody was here,” Flikshstein said. “It’s dead.”

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