Tacoma’s micro business owners will reopen to a frustrating world of masks and back rent
Mostafa AboEl-Nil’s small antique and clock store on Tacoma’s Antique Row can barely hold three people.
Usually, that’s not a problem for AboEl-Nil, La Galerie’s only employee.
Like a lot of the antique, gift and clothing stores on Broadway, his is a micro store — an establishment with fewer than five employees and sales under $250,000 per year.
“If sales and repairs covers operating expenses, I’m happy,” he said. He’s had his store for the past 12 years.
As with others on Antique Row, sales have been close to zero for AboEl-Nil following Gov. Jay Inslee’s closure of non-essential businesses on March 26 in effort to stem the rising cases of COVID-19.
Since then, the proprietors on Broadway have seen incomes disappear as bills pile up. Landlords range from stingy to forgiving in their pursuit of rent payments.
Even if doors open next week, it won’t be business as usual for Antique Row. Shop keepers have been mostly left to their own to figure out what coronavirus safety protocols they should put in place, they said.
Shopping offline
“Some people are really good at doing online stuff. Not me. I have always wanted to be a shopkeeper,” said Linda Morrison. She chose April 1 as the day to open a vintage home decor and gift store, The Mecca Mercantile, on Broadway. The 5,000-square-foot store she shares with a partner has yet to open.
It’s the unique products and ability to speak with store owners that keep customers coming to Antique Row, owners say. In turn, they thrive on the customer interactions.
“I don’t want to be an online dealer,” Morrison, a longtime Antique Row dealer, said. “I don’t want to do eBay. I don’t want to do Etsy. I want to see the people who are buying my stuff. I want to do a little chatting and then I want them to leave.”
Michael Maker sells vintage clothing and other one-of-a-kind items from his Savoy Special Vintage store across from Morrison’s. He takes a stand against e-commerce, calling it injurious to small businesses and towns.
“A lot of us are very old-fashioned here on Broadway and in Tacoma,” Maker said. “We have brick-and-mortar stores because we choose not to do online.”
AboEl-Nil, 79, started his business after he retired from a career as a plant geneticist. He’s been repairing clocks since he was 12-years-old.
“I want to have some activity,” AboEl-Nil said. “I’ve been enjoying every minute of it.”
Although he doesn’t need the store’s income to live on, he relies on it to pay La Galerie’s rent, insurance and utilities. The bills total $2,500 monthly.
He used the closure to get ahead on clock repairs and antique refurbishing. On Wednesday afternoon, he had a newly polished accent table drying just outside the shop’s front door.
“Closure was good for me, personally,” AboEl-Nil said. “Financially, it was very bad.”
Digging out
Ellen Laguatan is the owner of what’s been known as OCD Candy for the past 10 years. When the store re-opens it will have a new name, Sweets & Stuff. The fresh moniker reflects new product lines beyond candy.
She’s bullish on Antique Row, strung between McMenamins Elks Temple on one end and the Tacoma Farmers Market on the other.
“There’s a lot of opportunity to be seen by the public,” Laguatan said. “We feel like we’re the heart of the city.”
A 30-year career in the military gave her a retirement income. She used hers and her husband’s stimulus funds to pay her store bills, which total about $900 per month.
“It’s allowed me to keep my head above water,” she said.
Laguatan is her only employee. Her business is too small to qualify for government loans.
“The landlords along here have been pretty generous but at some point we’re going to have to pay the rent,” Morrison said. “If you get a loan, you’re still going to have pay that back.”
Talk among her fellow business owners often turns to business survival, Morrison said.
“This is not a high-profit business,” Morrison said. “It’s going to be hard to climb out of being shut down for virtually three months.”
For AboEl-Nil, paying rent became a financial burden.
“My landlord was not acceptable to any negotiations,” he said. “They said they are willing to take whatever I can pay but in the end I have to pay it back. They didn’t even reduce the rent $10.”
AboEl-Nil’s landlord did not return a reporter’s emails and phone calls seeking comment.
Maker’s landlord deferred payments until he can reopen but he’ll eventually have to settle up, he said.
“It’s just going to be money owed,” Maker said. “That’s going to be a big worry when it’s over. How that money will be collected upon will be up to the building’s owner.”
Maker hasn’t gotten any kind of financial aid, but that doesn’t mean he wont try.
“I feel kind of stupid for asking,” Maker said. “We’re just not used to asking for help. But this situation is unprecedented.”
Laguatan had her rent cut in half for May and June.
“That was a tremendous help,” she said. “We have no complaints. They’ve been wonderful landlords.”
Protection from infection
Morrison has seen the viral videos of retail employees and workers asking unmasked customers to leave Costco, restaurants and other establishments.
“I don’t want any of that to happen,” Morrison said, but she’s unclear what she’s going to require of customers when she can open.
“Do we buy a box of masks and hand them out to people as they come in? Do we put someone at the door and say, ‘No, you can’t come in?,’” Morrison said.
Where does a customer’s responsibility begin in a micro business?
“I want people to know that I care about the fact that I don’t want them to get sick,” Morrison said. “But I don’t want to argue with anybody.”
Maker will close his dressing rooms. It’s about the only firm decision he’s made.
“No one has told us anything,” Maker said, echoing a common sentiment along Broadway. “Everyone is flying by the seat of their pants. Us and the government.”
When AboEl-Nil opens, he said it will be business as usual in the small shop.
“Social distancing is easy for me to impose,” he said. He will wear a mask. If customers prefer, he’ll take clocks and other merchandise outside for customer to inspect.
Laguatan is using a mix of advice from the city to the Centers for Disease Control to forge a path forward.
“I’m cleaning and sterilizing everything ...,” she said.
She shares the space with a clothing and home decor shop. They’ll have hand sanitizer at the front door. In addition, they’ll limit the number of the people in the shop.
“We don’t have the finances to be able to supply everybody that comes through with a mask,” she said. “We’re going to be wearing our own masks and hope that other people do the same.”
Laguatan and her space partner both fall into vulnerable health categories, she said. Staying healthy is vital.
“As much as we would love to open next week, if they come down and say there’s too many cases in Pierce, we’re going to follow that for as long as they’re suggesting,” Laguatan said.
A number of programs exist to help small business owners, including the Paycheck Protection Program. Most seem geared toward businesses larger than those on Antique Row, in Freighthouse Square and numerous other micro businesses in Pierce County.
Federally-funded Pierce County CARES will distribute a limited amount of surgical masks and thermometers to businesses in Pierce County in early June. It’s of little comfort to Morrison.
“What the hell am I going to do with that?,” Morrison wonders. “I have to get close to somebody. I’m not particularly interested in reading people’s temperatures.” She is not a medical professional, she noted.
The city of Tacoma has deferred to the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department on safety protocols.
As difficult as the shutdown has been, AboEl-Nil thinks the stay-at-home order was a good idea.
“I think it was necessary to control the disease,” he said, weighing the balance between finance and safety. “Safety was prime.”
