San Gabriel Valley Abuzz With Rumors About SARS

SARS hasn’t made much headway in Los Angeles County. But false rumors about the disease have become a virulent contagion in parts of the San Gabriel Valley.

Owners of Asian eateries and groceries in the area say business is suffering because of anonymous e-mails and stray gossip alleging that they are fostering the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome.

Though it is unclear whether the e-mails have one or more sources, the various versions in circulation all seem to contain urgent warnings that SARS is spreading in the San Gabriel Valley or “in town.”

The messages have reached a broad audience, including high school students, newspapers, food suppliers, customers and local cultural institutions. They have spread beyond the San Gabriel Valley -- at least as far away as Hollywood, said Tony Tsang, 65, who was dining Thursday at a Chinese restaurant in San Gabriel.

“The other day, my son’s girlfriend, who lives over there, asked my wife through my son whether the Hawaii Supermarket ceased operation,” he said, referring to a popular store in San Gabriel falsely mentioned as a source of SARS in some e-mails.

At the Sam Woo Seafood Restaurant, where Tsang was eating, two-thirds of the seats were vacant on Thursday afternoon. The San Gabriel establishment also had the misfortune to be mentioned in one of the e-mails.

Although the restaurant, which seats over 700, is never full during the week, the customer drop-off has been dramatic. Scores of tables were empty on Thursday, pristinely set with pink linen napkins and chopsticks in their wrappers. Last weekend, the owners let 20 of the 50 employees go home early.

“It’s all so empty, it’s pitiful,” said manager Henry Hsu, who is angered by the e-mails. “I thought someone was trying to hurt us. We don’t have any enemies. We’ve been here for 10 years and never hurt anyone.”

In an attempt to quash the gossip, Los Angeles County’s director of public health, Dr. Jonathan Fielding, appeared at a news conference Wednesday, going so far as to eat Chinese food in front of reporters to prove his confidence in the restaurants.

“The point was to make clear the rumors were unfounded and destructive,” Fielding said.

The first cases of the illness were discovered late last year in southern China before spreading to other Asian countries, the U.S., Canada and Germany. The virus, which apparently spreads through close contact with those infected, has killed 116 people around the world.

But, at this point, there have been just nine suspected cases of SARS in Los Angeles County, none of them fatal. Only one of those cases involved a person who got it through contact with someone -- a family member -- who had been in Asia. The other eight had traveled recently in Asia. Moreover, considering the thousands of people who come back from Asia to Los Angeles County each day, just a tiny fraction have acquired the disease, Fielding said.

San Gabriel Police Lt. Ed Hache estimates there are three or four e-mail variations, which differ somewhat in wording and businesses named. All of them, however, caution against going to Asian establishments.

They began surfacing April 4, claiming, inaccurately, that several restaurants had been closed because employees were infected with SARS. “A lot of them are group transactions where one person will send them to 20 or 30 people. So it’s kind of hard to backtrack it,” Hache said.

At least one of the e-mails is full of grammatical mistakes and misspellings, alleging that a “chief” -- instead of “chef” -- had contracted the illness at a restaurant. “Friends, please take care of yourself and your family. Avoid going to ASIAN areas!!!” the e-mail exclaims.

As soon as the e-mails appeared, San Gabriel police began fielding about 50 phone calls a day from worried restaurant patrons and others.

The Hawaii Supermarket got hundreds of phone calls as well.

“They say they heard we are being closed down because SARS was found in our store and with our employees,” said Cindy Lau, office manager for the huge supermarket across from the Focus Jewelry Plaza, which also is named as a site of infection in at least two e-mails.

“I told them it’s not true.... We’re operating as normal. We’ve never been closed. We’ve been open for 12 years.”

The e-mails have led to worried conversation among community members. One restaurant manager said the regulars who practice t’ai chi and other exercises in the city parks each morning were abuzz with the news. “The old people go to the park every morning,” said Henry Hsu, manager of Sam Woo restaurant. “If one of them knows about it, then 1,000 know about it.”

After Cynthia Hin, 16, received a copy of the e-mail from a friend, she panicked and called her 19-year-old sister, Sylvia.

“I told her to stay away from the Hawaii Supermarket,” said Cynthia Hin, who was visiting the Focus Jewelry Plaza on Thursday with Sylvia. “I was so scared because I had just been there,” Sylvia Hin said.

Locals bring this anxiety to the doctor’s office too. “I’ve never seen this community that scared,” said Dr. Hsiao-Fen Chen, whose family practice office has been located in Focus Jewelry Plaza since 1995.

An increasing number of patients have come in seeking chest X-rays and shots, although there is no known treatment for SARS, an atypical pneumonia.

Early this week, 30 to 40 alarmed restaurateurs from around the San Gabriel Valley met privately to discuss what they could do about their drop in business, Hsu said. Although the e-mails primarily targeted establishments in San Gabriel, other eateries in surrounding communities also have a seen a drop in business, particularly those in the same chains.

A manager of a New Capital Seafood restaurant in San Gabriel said the eatery was so concerned about the rumors that it paid for employees to get chest X-rays and physical exams.

“We wouldn’t let anyone work who had SARS because we want to protect our customers and our staff,” said manager Henry Chen. “If everyone is scared, the economy is no good. We hope everything will go back to normal. It’s been a little bit better these last two days since the press conference.”

Henry Chen said he can’t figure out who would be behind the e-mails. “I thought this must have been people who had nothing better to do, someone who was not very educated,” he said.

The Hawaii Supermarket seemed to be faring better by the end of the week. On Thursday morning, some shoppers picking over mangos and buying pastries had not even heard the rumors.

“We think we’re slowly recovering,” Lau said. “I have no idea who did this -- I just think maybe people who want to hurt our business.”