When night falls, these weary Tacoma business owners wonder, ‘What’s going to happen?’
It’s the busiest time of year for the Johnson Candy Co. as one customer after another leaves the Tacoma institution with a heart-shaped box filled with nearly a century’s worth of candy-making know-how.
The Johnson family’s 1940s building is the only commercial structure on a block that also holds Peoples Park on MLK Jr. Way in Tacoma’s Hilltop neighborhood. A vintage photo hanging inside the store shows the building in its prime with large plate glass windows.
Today, the building looks like it came out on the losing end of a street brawl — its once gleaming glassy smile now missing several teeth. They’re the latest broken windows in a string that goes back almost two years.
The Johnsons and their two apparel business tenants make up just one building in a city that has been plagued by window smashings and thefts. The crime wave has cost business owners tens of thousands of dollars, pitted civic groups against each other and spawned frustrated complaints to city and police officials.
“Our bank account is looking real small compared to what it was, just to be able to repurchase product,” said Willie Combs, the owner of The TSM Shop, a custom screen printing T-shirt business that rents space from the Johnson family.
The Johnsons and their business owner tenants haven’t picked sides or spoken out. Instead, they sweep up the glass, absorb the losses and brace for the next incident.
“The frustrating part is worrying at night,” Combs said. “What’s going to happen?”
The News Tribune spoke with them Wednesday about the challenges and heartbreaks of running small, independent businesses in Tacoma during an on-going crime wave.
TRAUMATIC MEMORIES
Nathalie Bajinya is wearing a cantaloupe-colored raincoat as she pulls back the curtains on her small shop on South 10th Street, around the corner from the candy store entrance.
One window needs no curtain. It’s covered with plywood.
That’s where vandals or burglars or opportunists — take your pick — made off with $10,000 of clothing, material, merchandise and personal items after the window was smashed last week.
Bajinya made the coat herself. It’s just one of the stylish fashions she sells in her shop, Undeniable Bajinya. She sews her one-of-a-kind garments herself, many from colorful African textiles
A native of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bajinya was taught to sew by nuns while growing up in a Kenyan orphanage. She came to the U.S. as a refugee at age 14.
Problems at her most recent store location in Lakewood forced her to move. She felt lucky finding new space in the Johnson’s Candy building in late 2021.
“I said I’m not gonna lose my store because I found where I can afford to pay,” she said.
Bajinya spent $6,000 making improvements to the space.
Last week, a woman had been causing problems in hers and other stores in the area. Early the next morning she began getting calls about a break-in at her store.
Along with fabric, Bajinya lost merchandise, her iPad and a camera.
Perhaps the most troubling loss was a wedding dress she was making for a client, along with the custom fabric.
The losses added up to $10,000.
For Bajinya, the incident brought back memories of childhood trauma. Her family members were murdered during social unrest in Congo.
“It did not catch up until the late night,” she said Wednesday. “I didn’t feel safe anymore. I just felt like it’s the same thing happening in Africa. What if I was in there? They will kill me.”
A friend set up a GoFundMe account. So far, it’s raised more than $7,000.
HILLTOP INSTITUTION
Bill Johnson’s apron was lightly smeared with chocolate as he took a break Wednesday from his countdown to Valentine’s Day.
He stood near what had recently been a plate glass window but was now covered in plywood.
Johnson is the production manager for his family’s business, Johnson Candy. Johnson rents space to Bajinya and Combs. Both renters praised Johnson for his reasonable rents.
The Johnsons have paid out-of-pocket for the dozen or so windows they’ve lost in their building. Each window costs $700 to replace. They have insurance, but they are leery of making a claim.
“We’re concerned about having your premiums raised a lot or just having your policy canceled outright,” he said.
Johnson takes a long pause when asked what he thinks of the politicization of the glass breaking and thefts. He’s leery of becoming a pawn for those who would blame people living in encampments near his store.
“I don’t want us to be used as a kind of a tool for their kind of agenda,” he said.
He acknowledges that homelessness is a problem and so is crime but resists drawing a straight line between the two.
“I think what gets lost is the nuance that is needed to deal with these issues,” he said. “I feel like you get caught in the middle between, you know, a lot of people yelling.”
Society at large bears the burden of solving these problems, Johnson said.
“Everybody really has to realize that we’re a community and have to help each other out,” he said.
Johnson has seen crime flood and ebb in the Hilltop, including the wave of gang violence in the 1980s. Moving out has never been an option, he said.
“I’m kind of proud that we’re here,” he said. “And I love the neighborhood. So, you know, I wouldn’t want to move.”
THE T-SHIRT MAN
Willie Combs didn’t have to search far to find the stolen T-shirts and hoodies he custom printed at his shop inside the Johnson Candy building. He just looked around his neighborhood.
“I’m seeing these grown men wearing like, Baker Middle School,” he said. “I know you don’t go to Baker Middle School, and it looks brand new and we just printed it.”
Until December, Combs had largely escaped the problems plaguing the rest of the neighborhood. Then the windows started breaking.
A Jan. 28 window break, caught on video, shows a man reaching in and hauling off an entire rack of clothing. After a few seconds, the thief rides off on a bike. The incident lasts less than a minute.
Combs estimates he’s lost $10,000 worth of merchandise from smash-and-grabs.
It’s not just Combs who suffers when his business is hit. He has two full-time and one part-time employee. Between them, the business supports seven children, he said.
Combs thinks illegal drug use and sales are the root cause of the thefts. He didn’t have any problems in years past when Peoples Park was the site of a large encampment.
“For the most part, a lot of those people were just surviving, doing their best. Most a lot of them had jobs,” Combs said. “And what’s different now is, you’ll notice there are scattered camps around our shop.”
Combs, a tenant in the building since 2015, said he’s not going anywhere despite the recent crime wave.
“We’re doing the same thing we did since the day we opened, printing shirts, being part of the community, taking care of people,” Combs said. “There’s no point to move.”
Like Johnson, he stays out of the politics.
“I just never thought to politicize it,” he said. “It’s just a bunch of knuckleheads doing stupid stuff.”
The business community on the Hilltop is tight, he said, and they support each other. A fundraiser for The TSM Shop will be held on March 17 at Peterson Bros. 1111.
“There’s a lot of good people up here on the Hilltop,” Combs said. “And that’s what keeps us going.”
This story was originally published February 11, 2022 at 10:00 AM.
