Broken windows, meet Hilltop man’s helping hand — ‘I’m so grateful,’ says Vien Dong owner
Nadeem Shariff felt compelled to act. He had to do something. Sitting at his computer at the glass installation company he opened on Hilltop four years ago, he was scrolling social media last week when he stumbled on a post from Vien Dong, the well-known Vietnamese restaurant in Tacoma’s Lincoln District.
The post was making the rounds online, showing the jagged aftermath of a spree of vandalism along South 38th Street that felt personal. On Instagram, Vien Dong’s post indicated the restaurant had received a hate-fueled phone call just hours before the windows were smashed, telling owner Linh Nguyen to “go back to your country.” In a period marked by attacks against Asian Americans, it was hard not to connect the dots, even if police later said the incident isn’t believed to be a hate crime.
Shariff, a 29-year-old Navy reservist who worked as a nuclear test engineer at Naval Base Kitsap in Bremerton, said he didn’t hesitate. As a minority business owner, he knows just how hard it is to make a go of it, he explained, so he immediately empathized with what Vien Dong was going through and reached out.
By Monday, Shariff was on site, taking measurements and making calculations. His company — TN Glass Install — will soon be replacing the restaurant’s window for free. Shariff also plans to replace the glass at Kim Dung Salon next door, he said.
On Wednesday, Vien Dong co-owner Kevin Le described the random act of kindness from a stranger — in response to a senseless act of destruction — as “just awesome.”
“It’s just a community pulling together … and helping each other out. I’m so grateful — my family is so grateful — for Nadeem and his company offering to do that,” Le said. “We are a struggling small business. Right now is COVID, and it’s hard already to survive. It’s just so nice.”
As the son of immigrants — his mom is from Mexico and his dad is from Lebanon — Shariff said his primary motivation was simple. Though he attended the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy first, he always knew he wanted to go into business for himself one day. It’s what he saw growing up: newcomers to this country staking a claim and building a life. It can be grueling, Shariff said, and money is always tight, so when he saw Viet Dong’s post, he wanted to help the best way he knew how.
“It’s very costly to fix, because that type of glass is expensive. It’s a pretty niche trade — you need a lot of experience to install it — so when someone in my neighborhood goes through that, it’s really not a big deal for us to just go fix it for them, and hopefully help them along a little bit,” Shariff said.
It’s not the first time that Shariff — who first got into the glass business working out of the back of his Subaru and went full time earlier this year after leaving the Navy — has made such a gesture, he said.
In fact, replacing broken windows at Tacoma-area businesses has become all too common, he indicated, and he’s replaced several free of charge over the last year. The spike Shariff describes is another reason he wanted to help, he told The News Tribune.
“Traditionally, for glass businesses, you focus on glass replacement — but the real projects you work on are new construction or replacement windows. Glass replacement is typically not enough work for you to have a full suite business,” Shariff said. “But if you talk to people (in the business), you’ll find that the glass repair and replacement has been overwhelming the past year, year and a half. There’s so much work just replacing broken glass that everyone’s kind of scratching their heads like, ‘Wow, we’ve never seen it like this.’”
“Commercial businesses have experienced an insane surge in broken windows,” Shariff added.
According to Tacoma Police spokesperson Wendy Haddow, culling data specifically for reports of broken windows is difficult, but — compared to the same time last year — destruction of property and vandalism are up 13%, or more than 700 additional calls. In terms of public perception, Haddow also noted that Tacoma has experienced several high-profile incidents of broken windows in recent months, including not far from Vien Dong’s Lincoln District location.
For Shariff, an uptick in shattered glass might be good for business, but he also knows it’s difficult on neighbors he cares about.
When he saw Vien Dong’s original social media post, he said the thought to himself, “How much of this can a community take?”
“I don’t know,” Shariff admitted, “but it doesn’t hurt every once in a while to just lend a hand and take care of someone when they’re in need.”
This story was originally published December 17, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
