Boycott Turns Panorama City Mall Into Ghost Town

At 11 a.m. Monday, Edward Ourishian stood at his Prime Time watch stand in the empty Panorama Mall and groaned. “I’m definitely not putting out the gold merchandise,” he said. “Why bother? There’s no one here.”

Canned music echoed off the stone and glass walls of the Panorama City shopping center, anchored on one end by a Wal-Mart and on the other by La Curacao, a department store geared toward the Latino market.

“The shoppers here are 95% Hispanic,” Ourishian said. Most of them stayed away today. “This is not a mall,” he said. “This is a ghost town.”

In the community that is home to many working-class Latino immigrants, the empty parking lots of three closed ethnic supermarkets served as political statements. Scores of small neighborhood stores were also shuttered.

In the Wal-Mart, workers in blue “How May I Help You?” aprons outnumbered shoppers. Store managers would not discuss the boycott’s effect on sales.

“I don’t want to be here, but my neighbor had a baby this morning. It’s an emergency,” said a woman who scurried through the store with a cart full of baby blankets, clothes and diapers. Speaking in Spanish, she would not give her name because she said she was embarrassed to be seen shopping.

Clusters of people in white T-shirts walked through the mall before heading to marches. They didn’t shop.

“I wanted to see what it looks like,” said Alejandro Cisneros, a garment worker who took the day off work to attend the afternoon march starting from MacArthur Park.

By late morning, 11 of the mall’s more than 50 businesses had closed for lack of customers.

“I’m only here because we’re getting a shipment in today,” said Steve Chan, who stood with two employees outside his Sports Town Shoes store.

La Curacao was open, but only to give out legal advice.

One of six branches, the Panorama City store attracts 2,500 to 3,000 shoppers on a typical Monday, manager Jose Cruz said.

“We’re taking a big hit by closing, but it’s worth it,” he said, noting that the store depends on the loyalty of immigrant customers.

At the front of the store, a dozen employees in white shirts met those who came for legal aid and guided them through the darkened store. In the credit department, two volunteer attorneys sat at a folding table dispensing advice.

Throughout the day, they repeated the same message: Keep working, pay taxes, stay out of trouble and monitor the news.

“We are living through a historic moment,” said one of the lawyers, Jessica Dominguez, who emigrated from Peru with her parents when she was 14.

“We are getting more and more united, and our voices are starting to be heard.”