Opening Up for Business : Koreatown Looks to Other Ethnicities for Post-Riot Patrons

From his second-floor office in a Western Avenue mini-mall, Bong W. Kim looked sadly at the Koreatown businesses’ half-empty parking area.

“The parking lot is occupied by tenants, not customers,” said Kim, president of Han Mi Immigration Corp., a notary public service catering to immigrants. “Business is almost dead now.”

To Kim and many other Koreatown merchants, the number of parked cars signifies a decline in the once-thriving business district since the Los Angeles riots two years ago.

Korean American business owners suffered an estimated $400 million in damages during the riots, and Koreatown--home to many of those businesses and a symbol of Korean business success--was a particular target of the looting and arson that followed the not-guilty verdicts in the first Rodney G. King beating trial. Total riot damage was estimated at $1 billion.

In the two years after the riots, damaged or destroyed buildings have been rebuilt or repaired in Koreatown at a faster pace than in other heavily damaged areas of the city (82% in Koreatown versus 50% citywide). But many of the refurbished buildings are empty, and many others house businesses coping with drastically reduced sales since the riots, according to Koreatown merchants.

Efforts to revitalize Koreatown business have been crippled by a sluggish California economy, a rising crime rate in Koreatown and surrounding neighborhoods, a general fear of the area that developed after the civil unrest among previously dependable customers and even the Northridge earthquake, according to the area’s merchants.

A Dun & Bradstreet study last year of Koreatown and South-Central Los Angeles found that 40% of businesses damaged during the riots shut down permanently within six months of the riots. Major problems were the lack of insurance to cover damages and the inability to get loans.

Owners of many of the Koreatown businesses that managed to stay open said revenues are down as much as 50% from pre-riot levels.

Kim, 68, said he is barely surviving. After working in the immigration business for over 40 years, he said he decided to set up his own company seven years ago to help Korean immigrants with their naturalization paperwork.

The business was doing well before the riots, but it dipped 50% immediately after the violence, he said. Business has improved only minimally in the intervening two years, Kim said, estimating that he now has about 60% of the business that he had before the riots.

“It’s not easy right now,” Kim said. The business is bringing in only enough income for him to keep going on a month-to-month basis.

Even as the Los Angeles area economy generally improves, Koreatown merchants are confronted with another problem: crime. Although reported crime is down about 10% from last year, Police Department statistics show that the crime rate in Koreatown and neighboring communities is still relatively high compared to citywide averages.

Business owners in the area say robberies--averaging one a day--and drug trafficking are the most prevalent problems.

Kenneth Y. Kim, owner of Pola Cosmetics, which sells imported cosmetics, said he stands outside his Olympic Boulevard store each day, ready to walk customers--mainly women--to and from their cars because “it’s not safe to walk during the day.”

The violence of the riots, added to the fear of crime, caused many Korean Americans to move out of the Koreatown area to safer neighborhoods, according to business owners in the area.

They were the major customer base for Koreatown merchants, but memories of the violent riots has made many Korean Americans who moved reluctant to come back into the neighborhood to shop or seek services, Koreatown merchants said.

Champ Chang Pyon, president of Eun Sung U.S.A. International, a distributor of Christian-sermon tape recordings on Western Avenue, recalled his fears as he watched a building across from his office burn during the riots.

“People are more afraid to come to Koreatown to shop, especially when Koreatown was a target during the riot,” he said.

Besides improved crime statistics and a stronger economy, officials of the Korean American Chamber of Commerce said the key to long-term business improvement in Koreatown is to attract customers from outside the Korean community.

To date, a major problem in broadening the customer base has been that many Koreatown merchants speak little or no English.

But the disadvantage of depending on the Korean community was shown after the Jan. 17 Northridge earthquake. The large number of Korean Americans who suffered serious earthquake damage are not heading to Koreatown to shop as much, merchants said.

“A lot of Koreans live in Northridge, (and) they don’t shop as much now,” said H.K. Kim, owner of Manna Cake and Bakery in the same Western Avenue mini-mall as Bong W. Kim’s shop. About 20,000 Korean Americans live in the Northridge area, according to Edward Chang, an assistant professor of ethnic studies at the University of California, Riverside.

The Korean American Chamber of Commerce is leading the effort to broaden Koreatown’s patronage beyond Koreans. Some restaurants in Koreatown have hired employees who are fluent in English to appeal to people from a variety of ethnic backgrounds who like Korean food, according to Harrison Kim, the chamber’s executive director.

Other shopkeepers are adding English translations to their signs to help market their services to non-Koreans, he added.

“As time goes on, businesses are increasingly spreading their market to the non-Korean market as well,” Kim said.

To increase business activity, the chamber also plans to promote Koreatown as a tourist attraction. Currently, most tourists who visit Koreatown are from South Korea. But the hope is that Koreatown will eventually attract the variety and volume of tourists now seen in Chinatown and Little Tokyo.

The city of Los Angeles is also making an effort to reduce crime and improve housing in Koreatown through the Community Redevelopment Agency. The agency is working on a plan to improve residential development in Koreatown and the neighboring Wilshire Center area, said Cooke Sunoo, a CRA project manager.

“If the residential area is more stable, then businesses are more willing to invest in the area,” Sunoo said.

After the riots, community representatives in Koreatown were some of the first to request and receive aid from the city council to redevelop the area, Sunoo said.