An Oakland business owner said she is optimistic that recovery is on the way, with Mayor-Elect Barbara Lee set to take office.
Karen Fong moved from Hong Kong to Oakland in 1990. Since then, she opened one of three restaurants, Shooting Star Café in Chinatown.
“For me, it’s memory for when I grew up in Hong Kong, so the food, the taste,” Fong told CBS News Bay Area.
She is bringing the taste of her motherland to neighbors and visitors from all over the Bay Area. She said, however, that since the pandemic she has lost about 50% of foot traffic.
She attributes concerns about public safety as one major factor.
“Before, most of the customers, sometimes they travel to Oakland, stop in Oakland. They’re just passing the freeway by Oakland now because it’s too dangerous,” Fong said.
She added that she’s noticing many of her fellow business owners are leaving the area.
“Frustrating for everybody who works in the city,” Fong said.
Another addition to new city leadership is District Two Councilmember-Elect Charlene Wang, and Fong expects that change is coming.
“I remember what Oakland’s Chinatown was like when I was a child, and I could see that in many ways, stores are boarded up,” Wang said. “We’re experiencing blight. A lot of small businesses are leaving Oakland at this point, they’re struggling to survive.”
With a nearly $130 million budget shortfall, Wang knows there’s a long road ahead.
“They’re going to places outside of Oakland, even Oaklanders that live here, instead of supporting the businesses that are right here in our district,” she said. “Even in my own neighborhood, I see a number of small businesses have left. Walgreens left. You actually see more and more vacant storefronts appearing here in Oakland. And that’s worrisome, that means we’re getting decreased investment.”
But she said that small businesses are and should continue to be the driving force of economic revitalization.
“When Oakland is not thriving, you feel that ripple effect throughout the county. So, to me, small businesses are really the lifeblood of what makes Oakland unique and what makes Oakland a place that people want to visit,” Wang said.
She is pushing to fill Oakland Police vacancies and also to launch programs that would close some homeless encampments in order to move people off the streets. Wang’s vision is to find more effective pipelines for those experiencing homelessness to find shelter and jobs.
“With every vacant storefront, unfortunately that means a business has left. But it also means that we can effort and ask for assistance with pragmatic support and support from city leadership, we can fill those vacant storefronts and really start rebuilding back our communities,” Wang said.
And Fong adds that she hopes these visions will become reality.
“We need more police officers to work around Chinatown because we have a lot of older people living in this area,” she said.
She hopes for a positive change as the city is one step forward in healing and rebuilding.
“All my customers are like family,” Fong said.
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