Zhen Wu knows that after years of working in restaurants it was his mother, Rui Ping Wu’s, lifelong dream to open a restaurant. The opportunity finally came in April of 2019 and Traditional Guilin Noodles opened it’s doors next to Star Ballroom Dance Studio on Garvey Avenue.
While the business struggled during the height of the pandemic, things turned for the worst following the mass shooting at the dance studio on Jan. 21.
The restaurant’s clientele vanished overnight, Wu said.
So when Rep. Judy Chu, D-Pasadena, and U.S. Small Business Administration head Isabel Casillas Guzman visited the neighborhood on Friday, Feb. 24, it spurred a tinge of hope that lawmakers and leaders were looking at ways to support Monterey Park businesses trying to get by in the aftermath of the tragedy.
“It’s kind of a mixed feeling,” Wu said. “We’re excited to get some representation in our town … .We’re still trying to process what happened. It was a little too close to home.”
Chu and Guzman Casillas, the SBA’s administrator, visited businesses along Garvey Friday afternoon to hear directly from them on the immediate needs coming from last month’s tragedy, and to hear about longer-term challenges, such as the impact of COVID-19.
Chu, a member of the House Small Business Committee, said she is “committed to promoting the backbone of our economy — small businesses. Particularly those owned by women, Asian Americans, limited English proficiency and other historically underserved groups. I was inspired by each business owner’s ingenuity, passion, and persistence, and I am appreciative of how they serve and support our local community.”
According to a 2017 study by the Urban Institute, gun violence can significantly lower property values and result in fewer business startups as well as a loss of jobs. It is estimated that this slowed home-value appreciation by 4%. Chu is an avid proponent for gun regulation. In March of 2021, the former Monterey Park…
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