EARTHQUAKE: THE LONG ROAD BACK : Along Reseda Blvd., a Retail Nightmare : Earthquake: “I can’t afford not to be open,” says one shopkeeper, echoing the plight of other merchants.
Dainty pink and red valentines and wrapping paper were back in the racks by late last week at the Kids at Heart gift shop in Northridge. But for owner Laura D’Angelo, the shattered windows, cracked walls, broken merchandise and fallen ceiling tiles served as physical reminders that her life might never be the same.
After greeting a visitor with a faint smile, D’Angelo burst into tears. Her Granada Hills home was a shambles, she explained, and the survival of the small business she had spent seven years building was now in doubt. Replacing the windows alone would cost more than $2,000.
“I’m not Mervyn’s,” D’Angelo said. “Mervyn’s will survive. But I can’t afford not to be open. I just want our lives to return to normal.”
For merchants along the devastated block of Reseda Boulevard where 16 people lost their lives in the collapse of the Northridge Meadows apartment building, “normal” vanished with last Monday’s powerful earthquake.
Already battered by the recession, these small businesses often exist day to day, counting on their doors opening each morning and bringing in the few hundred or thousand dollars needed to meet expenses and provide a small profit.
On this block--lined with apartment buildings, restaurants and strip malls, where hair and nail salons are scattered among the dry cleaners, memorabilia shops and other small businesses--most of the merchants carry no earthquake insurance. The premiums and deductibles are too high. Though their buildings are owned by others, as tenants they are responsible for many of the repairs themselves. What’s worse, for every day they remain closed, money is lost that could be used to pay for repairing the damages.
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The six days following the earthquake have been spent carrying away carpets of glass, boarding up blown-out windows, throwing out demolished merchandise and beginning the laborious and painful process of figuring out exactly how much was destroyed.
As the electricity finally came back on late in the week, many merchants expressed frustration that they could not reach their insurers by phone. And even when they did, they received only vague answers about what would be covered. Many tried calling the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to inquire about low-interest loans, but the lines were busy.
Some, too, were angered by what they perceived as a lack of compassion on the part of their landlords.
Kim Dellibovi said she asked the owner of the strip mall that houses her nail salon for an extension on more than $2,000 in rent that’s due in two weeks. The answer, she said, was no--and she was informed that the cost of fixing the badly damaged roof would come out of her pocket.
The mall’s owner, Matthews Investment Co., and its management company, Mat West Management, in Van Nuys, declined to comment.
Behind each door in the strip malls that line the block, merchants faced their uncertain future with a mixture of fear and weary resignation.
Dellibovi started her salon eight years ago with her mother Mary--thus the name Kimary’s Nail Boutique. She is proud of the salon’s upscale image and reputation for quality, pleased that all the manicurists have built up their clientele through word of mouth.
But last week, bottles of nail polish lay strewn on the floor, and heavy shelves had toppled onto chairs where customers used to sit while their nails dried. All the $500 nail drills, $250 sterilizers and $125 gallons of acrylic were destroyed.
Dellibovi estimated it would cost her $10,000 to $15,000 to reopen; she still owes $6,000 on an earlier loan. The salon’s manicurists are independent contractors, but without federal disaster assistance, she said, “I think a lot of the girls are going to be secretaries.”
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Even if they do open their doors again, many business owners wonder if customers will return.
At My Hero, a submarine sandwich shop, owners Howard and Elise Kuebler watched through their windows--the only ones in their mini-mall that weren’t shattered by the quake--as apartment dwellers loaded their belongings into moving vans.
“I think a lot of people we serve won’t be around,” Elise said.
After 30 years at the location, the Kueblers said they were not sure if they’d be able to stay themselves, since the building had not yet been inspected. Every day of lost business was another $1,000 gone. Already, they had thrown out thousands of dollars worth of spoiled meat. A lemonade and punch machine was beyond repair, as was the ice machine.
Ara Boyajian, owner of Royal Cleaners at the Northridge Garden Center across and down the street, said a large percentage of his customers lived in the apartment buildings nearby, many of which are now condemned. Students from Cal State Northridge also have provided a steady clientele for area shops, but the hard-hit campus remains closed.
“With all these buildings condemned, it’s going to be a ghost town around here for a long time,” said Daniela Moreno, daughter of Giulianos Italian deli owner Dan Moreno. “A long time.”
The front wall at Giulianos appeared in danger of collapse, so Moreno served free snacks and discounted drinks on the sidewalk outside while her father waited in a FEMA line at the Winnetka Recreation Center. After a three-hour wait, Dan Moreno got an appointment for Jan. 30, at which time he plans to ask for a $250,000 loan.
He lost $50,000, wholesale, in merchandise alone--including deli items, wine and imported Italian packaged goods, Dan Moreno said. The oven cannot be used. Each day the store stays closed means the loss of what usually amounts to $2,000 in sales. Even if the Morenos can stay in the building, it could be six weeks before the deli reopens.
“Business has been rough enough the last couple of years because of the recession,” Moreno said. “A lot of my customers are advising me to go into bankruptcy. I don’t want to do that.”
But, he acknowledged, “I’ve got some decisions to make.”
Half a block away, Ben Hur, owner of Zeppelin Cleaners, gazed sadly at the piles of damaged clothes and broken dry cleaning equipment in his store. The thousands of dollars in machinery lost was bad enough, he said. But his biggest worry was that his customers would abandon him if he stayed closed too long.
“Every day I look at this and say, ‘What shall I do? What shall I do?’ ”
At the Baskin-Robbins ice cream shop across the street from Northridge Meadows, gawkers who came to take pictures and shoot videos of the collapsed apartment building kept stopping by, begging for ice cream and sodas. But with no refrigeration, not an ice cream cone was to be found. Franchise owner Joel Greene said he had thrown out “thousands and thousands of dollars” worth of inventory.
A few businesses were managing some transactions, despite the inconvenience.
At D&G; Escrow in Northridge Garden Center, no new loans or refinancings had been canceled because of the quake, said escrow officer Debbie Moreno, who is not related to the deli owners. The biggest immediate problem was the lack of bathroom facilities--the toilet had flown off its bolts and crashed.
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But there were other worries as well. Moreno said that lenders had begun demanding reinspections on properties, a process that promised to delay closings of escrows.
For strip-mall owners, a major worry is that already depressed real estate values will fall even further because of the earthquake.
But for now, the chief concern of Burnam Family Properties, which owns the Northridge Garden Center, is trying to work with tenants to get them back in business as soon as possible, said property manager Linda Ellingson. That is in the owner’s best interest, too, since the tenants all have clauses in their leases allowing them to forgo rent payments while they’re out of business.
As aftershocks continued to roll through the area, some business owners turned to a type of gallows humor to stay calm.
At Kids at Heart, D’Angelo said she plans to proceed with a rubber stamp promotion on Saturday, even if she has to hold it on the sidewalk or in the parking lot outside her shop.
The stamps, in various animal shapes, all survived the quake. D’Angelo said she will sell them for half the regular price: “We’ll call them ‘earthquake boo-boos.’ ”
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The block of Reseda Boulevard between Plummer and Superior streets was the site of the Northridge earthquake’s gravest tragedy, the deaths of 16 people in the collapse of the Northridge Meadows apartments.
The merchants on whom residents of the area rely--the shopkeepers in the strip malls along both sides of Reseda--suffered as well. The temblor brought most business to a halt; many shop owners are unsure if they will be able to recover.
Over the months ahead, The Times occasionally will revisit the block to tell these business people’s stories.
