Westwood’s commercial community not troubled by recent shootings

Recent shootings at UCLA may have some students concerned, but
the local business community is not worried the events will deter
customers from shopping in Westwood.

Some members of the business community were unfazed because the
incidents in Kerckhoff Hall on Oct. 5, and on Gayley Avenue and in
Parking Lot 8 on Oct. 18, were outside of the Village and did not
involve Westwood customers.

“It happened at night; it happened away from the
commercial district,” said Jay Handal, president of the West
Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce.

Hair stylist Sassoon Sassoon, whose salon has been located on
Broxton Avenue since 1969, agreed.

“If it was down on the street by a business, it would be a
whole different situation,” Sassoon said.

The October shootings around UCLA contras with recent crime in
the Westwood Village. According to the Los Angeles Police
Department, all 57 reported crimes in the months of July, August
and September were burglaries or thefts.

Nonetheless, Handal said university administration and
university police must act to prevent campus-related incidents from
disrupting business.

“We certainly wouldn’t want (campus-related
incidents) to spill over into the commercial district,” he
said.

Though little concern has been voiced about the shootings, some
Westwood business owners said they believe a murder in early 1988
had a lasting effect on Westwood business. Karen Toshima, 27, was
killed by a stray bullet in a gang-related incident on the corner
of Broxton and Weyburn avenues.

Around the same time, the Village, once a popular Los Angeles
night spot, was losing customers as Third Street Promenade in Santa
Monica and Old Pasadena emerged.

The correlation between the 1988 shooting and the area’s
decline in popularity is questioned, but many merchants remember
the event as a marker for when business went bad.

Gregg Bowman, owner of Bel Air Florist and Gardens on Weyburn
Avenue since 1979, said the number of people walking by his store
dropped following the incident. He estimated that it resulted in a
25 percent decrease in business for him.

Bowman believes Westwood has still not recovered. “People
have forgotten about ’88 since then, but they just
haven’t come back,” he said.