Some Merchants Find Silver Lining in Riot’s Aftermath : Rebuilding: Many business owners express faith in their neighborhoods. One now spends more time with his family. A burned-out thrift shop finds better, less expensive quarters.

After K. P. Wang’s photo studio was looted and burned during last year’s rioting, he began questioning a work ethos forged in his native Taiwan. He had labored seven days a week to turn his Inglewood business into a financial success, much of it at the expense of his family.

Trying to make sense out of the destruction of the shop, he began taking stock of what mattered most to him: his wife and two children, ages 8 and 12. He realized, he says now, that in his pursuit of financial success, he had been blinded to the joys of everyday family life. If there is a silver-lining for him in the events of the past year, it is that the tragedy has brought him closer to those he loves.

“(Family) is something I should treasure,” Wang said. “I seldom spent time with my kids. We really didn’t communicate. . . . Right now, I do feel life is more precious, especially (when it comes to) my family.”

Wang said he reopened his store because he had good relations with customers, including neighborhood gang members who develop film at the shop. But he works fewer weekends now, taking time out to play with his kids.

Wang is one of several dozen South Bay merchants whose businesses were damaged or destroyed during the disturbances that erupted last year after not guilty verdicts were announced in the state trial of four Los Angeles police officers accused in the beating of motorist Rodney G. King.

In the South Bay, the violence occurred mainly in Inglewood, Lennox, Lawndale, Hawthorne, Gardena and the northern portion of Carson. Inglewood, the hardest hit among the South Bay cities, had 30 businesses destroyed by fire. Half of the businesses have reopened and three others are in the process of being rebuilt. Twelve have yet to reopen their doors.

Fire-related damage in the city amounted to roughly $7 million. To help businesses rebuild, Inglewood provided property owners with free building inspections, earmarked $10,000 in grants to demolish burned-out buildings and provided assistance to filling out federal Small Business Administration loan applications.

Norman Y. Cravens, Inglewood assistant city manager, said that although Inglewood was not as seriously affected by the rioting as Los Angeles and Compton, it has felt some of the same repercussions.

“We, unfortunately, were as affected by the fallout from the riots,” Cravens said. “We tend to be lumped with the same perceptions as the rest of the areas, so that has hurt our businesses that are visitor oriented,” such as the Forum and Hollywood Park Race Track.

For Elda Schutte, manager of the Lutheran Thrift Shop on Prairie Avenue in Hawthorne, the riots were not exactly a blessing, but they weren’t an insurmountable tragedy, either.

Although about 100 Hawthorne businesses suffered at least some riot-related damage, with the total cost estimated at $4 million, the thrift store was the only Hawthorne business that was destroyed by fire. All of the thrift store’s inventory of donated used clothing, appliances and other items was lost; nothing was insured.

But 72 days after its burning, the thrift shop reopened in another building two blocks down the street at 132nd and Prairie--a better building, in fact, with more floor space and off-street parking, and lower rent.

“It was a miraculous thing, in a way,” said Schutte, who has been in the thrift shop business since 1958. “Because at first we didn’t know if we’d ever be able to reopen again. But we feel like we came out of it really well.”

Schutte said the Lutheran Thrift Shop received a lot of help from the community, with donations of everything from clothing to cash. There was even a cash donation from someone in Nebraska who wanted to help. Proceeds from the thrift shop go to support South Bay Lutheran High School.

The shop’s burned-out former location, meanwhile, is being rebuilt and probably will be available for rent in about two months, said the site’s owner, Culver City resident Danny Cavanaugh. He said there was never any doubt that his family, which has owned the property at 130th and Prairie for about 20 years, would opt to rebuild.

“It’s a good neighborhood,” Cavanaugh said. “The worst thing for us was losing (the thrift shop) as a tenant. They were great tenants.”

In Lawndale, which suffered an estimated $300,000 in looting and vandalism damage, no visible traces of the riots remain. No buildings in the city were burned, Lawndale community development director Gary Chicots said, and the 13 businesses that suffered damage have all been repaired.

Melinda On, co-owner of the Golden Garden Chinese restaurant in Carson, which was burned in the riots, said insurance covered the losses, although her nerves still are frayed.

As customers streamed in to the restaurant in a shopping center off Avalon Boulevard, On warily spoke about the riots.

She rebuilt because she had no other source of income. A year after the fire, she finds it difficult to discuss the incident.

“We just want to make a living here,” On said.

Before the verdicts in the federal case were announced, On took precautions, closing the restaurant a little earlier and hoping that nothing would happen again if unacceptable verdicts were returned.

“But it was quiet around here,” she said. “They were better prepared this time.”

In Inglewood, photo shop owner Wang said his fears of crime and of a further backlash against immigrants like himself have been heightened by last year’s disturbances. His store is situated in a shopping center on a gritty stretch of Century Boulevard. When he peers out his storefront, he sees vacant gas stations at either corner--one a casualty of last year’s disturbances and the other moved down the street.

A restaurant, U.S. Chinese Food, occupied a space in the same building where Wang’s business was located when the riots erupted. The restaurant was rebuilt on the same site, but Wang reopened his shop at a less visible location amid a row of merchants at the opposite end of the center, believing that site is safer. If someone sets fire to his store now, Wang says, he thinks authorities will respond more quickly because the shop is closer to a large supermarket.

At the U.S. Chinese Food restaurant, business is booming again. Owners Tien Che Ta and her husband, Michael Ta, had been in business three years until their fast-food outlet was destroyed.

The Chinese-Cambodian immigrants say they never had second thoughts about rebuilding.

“Basically, I don’t think (the fire) had anything to do with the people who live in this neighborhood,” said Samantha Bou, a niece who works at the family-run business. “Everybody is really glad we’re back. A lot of our old customers say, ‘We’re so sorry about what happened. We’re glad you’re back.’ ”

Wang, however, remains skittish about calling attention to himself.

Only two weeks ago, he waited for hourly phone calls to keep him abreast of the federal trial of the four officers accused in the King beating.

While the jury deliberated, Wang and several employees practiced evacuating the Inglewood studio in the event of more rioting. They went through five nights of drills, practicing quickly loading everything from portrait settings to the store’s cash register into their cars.

Wang said he is thankful that the plan never had to be carried out; last year his small business suffered $75,000 in property damage during the rioting. But Wang’s evacuation routine speaks volumes about the scars that remain from the worst civil disturbances in the United States this century.

Wang immigrated to California because of fears of political unrest in Taiwan, where he worked as a project manager at a petrochemical plant.

“It’s something very strange. I’m afraid of any unrest or riot that might happen in Taiwan, so I immigrate here and . . . this,” he said, mustering a half-hearted smile.

Wang, 46, lives in Rolling Hills Estates. But he says wealth and material goods are far less important to him now. “If you choose to go after money, there’s no end,” Wang said. “It’s never enough.”

Staff writers Michelle Fuetsch and Randal Archibold contributed to this story.