Q & A with Jay Handal: West L.A. Chamber of Commerce President

The Daily Bruin sat down for an interview with Jay Handal,
president of the West L.A. Chamber of Commerce and owner of San
Gennaro Café. We asked Handal about the economic problems
facing Westwood and the possible solutions.

Daily Bruin: What is the job of the West L.A. Chamber of
Commerce?

Jay Handal: Our job is to help build and enhance businesses and
the economic development of the Westside. We plan, we implement, we
find ways to help people network, we have publications “¦
There are services to help businesses in trouble or new businesses
that want to start up. And we have governmental interaction so that
we can help businesses that are being exploited or sometimes
overrun by governmental regulations. Basically, we’re out
there to protect the businesses.

DB: What’s your opinion of the city council’s
withdrawal of the proposal to create a new Business Improvement
District?

JH: I led the charge to have that stopped. My opinion is that
the past Business Improvement District was a huge failure overall
““ not in its entirety, but overall. The key is to bring a new
BID to Westwood, because it’s the only unifying factor to
make everybody pay their fair share. But we think it’s
premature for councilman Weiss to be putting through a new BID when
two weeks ago he had a meeting with the merchants in Westwood and
never mentioned he was doing a BID. … Ultimately, we (merchants)
pay the fees, while the property owners get to sit on the board and
decide how to spend our money. And it’s wrong because they
haven’t fixed the major issue in Westwood, which is parking.
Westwood must be “re-branded” as the place for people
to come to.

DB: Why was the past, disassembled BID unable to solve the
parking problem?

JH: Well, somewhere from $200,000 to $750,000 is unaccounted
for. One of the reasons we asked them not to put through the new
BID was because our understanding is that Councilman Weiss was
doing this (proposing the new BID) in conjunction with the same
property owners, who have not accounted for the lost money nor
provided the city with a required (by contract) annual financial
statement since 1999. Not only did they illegally pay people to
back out of the BID in secret meetings, but they also did not
fulfill their contract with the city. … We still don’t know
where the money is, because they still haven’t come back with
the audited financial statements.

DB: Didn’t Councilman Weiss propose a merchant-based,
not property-based, BID?

JH: He said in the merchants’ meeting that it makes more
sense to have a merchant-based BID. Then, he went to council two
weeks later, and asked for $25,000 for a company that no one has
ever talked to to come and form another (property-based) BID. So,
he didn’t listen to the merchants when they said that the
property owners failed us.

DB: On a different note, was the newly formed Business Watch
established to combat crime or the homeless problem in
Westwood?

JH: Yes, both. The Business Watch is a vehicle and a tool that
the merchants put together with the LAPD. What it does is try to
bring both groups together, so that the community people are the
eyes and ears of the police department. The community people are
out there to see what the problems are, whether it’s
transients or people breaking into offices and stores in attempts
to steal computers and printers. This is prevalent right now. The
Property and Medical buildings have been hit, as well as the retail
stores.

DB: .So, it’s more of crime against businesses, as
opposed to crime against individuals?

JH: Correct. If there’s a transient in front of a
business, you can make a phone call, and you’ll know who to
call in the phone-tree for help. If it was someone disturbing the
peace, then a merchant would call the police department. The
transient issue is a very difficult problem to deal with, as a
store-owner and as a restaurant-owner. I own two Italian
restaurants, and transients come in. I tell them that I’d be
happy to give them something to eat or a cup of coffee, but I
don’t want them to walk in through my dining room with no
shoes on. It scares my customers. I know that they’re hungry,
and that there’s a lot of hungry people out there. When I can
see that they’re truly hurting, what does it cost me to give
them a sandwich and a cup of coffee to-go? That I really
don’t have a problem doing, as long as they don’t
interfere with my business. It’s when they come in and get
crazy ““ because a lot of the homeless out there have mental
illnesses ““ that it’s a problem. It’s unfortunate
that we as a society have taken away many of the Reagan-era
programs formerly available to these people. So, they’re out
on the street, and it may not be their fault that they have mental
illnesses. But the fact is, they do, which makes it very difficult
to deal with the transient situation.

DB: Does the Business Watch keep tabs on the
homeless?

JH: No. The Business Watch is there for crime. If a guy comes
into the store with a gun, and somebody sees it and calls other
merchants, then someone should be able to get out and find a
license plate number and the necessary information to give to the
LAPD. It’s quick, and it’s a deterrent. There’s a
higher degree of “catching people” in Business or
Neighborhood Watch areas. It’s in everybody’s best
interest ““ the consumers”˜, the business owners’,
the shop owners’, and the LAPD’s.

DB: How do you think the LAPD can be improved to address the
crime in Westwood and in neighboring areas?

JH: I think that we should spend a lot of time and energy trying
to get another 5,000 policemen in this city. Foot-patrol just
isn’t cost-effective from a man-power point of view. An
officer on foot can’t respond as quickly as an officer in a
car. The bad guys are very good at knowing where you are and how
long it takes you to get to the next block. Foot-patrol is a drain
on manpower.

DB: Do you think that UCLA students understand the problems
and solutions facing Westwood?

JH: They don’t understand what it’s like to invest
hundreds of thousands of dollars into a business and have a problem
because you have a guy sleeping across your doorway. They
don’t understand what that means to a business owner and a
commercial district. I guess that when I was a college student
protesting the Vietnam War and everything else the government did,
I may have not understood it very well either. And maybe I
don’t understand it today. Maybe I’m just coming from a
different perspective. But I personally, as Chamber President,
would be happy to sit at a round table with any group of students
wanting to talk about the transient problem from a business
perspective and from a human perspective.

DB: How do you and other business-owners want to or plan to
improve the Village?

JH: (Monday) we decided among us in Westwood that we were going
to form Westwood Village Business Association. We’re going to
invite all the business owners to be a part of it. They would
(form) an autonomous committee of this chamber. So, they would have
an infrastructure, the protection that they’ve had over the
past few months, and the ability to go out and fight to make
Westwood a better place — for the consumer and for the business
person. Westwood has tremendous potential. It is an under-utilized
commercial district at this point. Nobody has figured out how to
really take advantage of the proximity of the college, nor the 13
available parking lots. Now it’s time for everyone to put
their egos in the luggage and send the luggage on a plane. We need
to sit down and admit that we’re missing the boat in
Westwood. We all need to work together, and the first step was
Monday’s formation of the Westwood Village Business
Association, as a committee of this chamber. We will now be able to
go out with one larger voice to our council people, our landlords
and to the community saying we want to bring Westwood back. And
hopefully a partnership with UCLA will be possible. Last week we
gave Councilman Weiss the résumé of a guy that just works
in college towns and in (creating) economic revivals. We hope to
get back to (Weiss) on that. It’s really time to make
Westwood a place that people are proud of ““ not afraid
of.