This story initially appeared on The Philadelphia Tribune.
Jameelah Scurry is left feeling violated after looters stole all of the merchandise from her clothes and niknaks store.
The proprietor of La’vanter Boutique at 1334 W. Venango St. watched in disbelief as safety video footage confirmed looters ransacking her enterprise on Tuesday.
Her boutique joins a rating of small companies and big-box shops that had been looted all through Philadelphia throughout the unrest sparked by the deadly police capturing of Walter Wallace Jr. on Monday in West Philadelphia.
“Once I acquired to the shop it was fully empty,” stated Scurry, who marked her second 12 months in enterprise. “I couldn’t consider it. I simply bust out crying.”
This marked the second time her boutique was burglarized, with the sooner incident occurring in August. Like different entrepreneurs she was additionally coping with the pandemic’s financial affect.
“We had been simply recovering from all of that, so this was devastating,” Scurry stated.
Scurry stop her job to turn out to be a enterprise proprietor. She and her brother bought the household home and invested their private financial savings into launching the boutique two years in the past.
“There simply had been a number of sacrifices and folks don’t perceive that,” Scurry stated. “We’re not profitable but. We’re nonetheless struggling entrepreneurs. We’re not a giant company. We’re not millionaires. We will’t bounce again from sure issues.”
Folks have stepped as much as assist Scurry’s GoFundMe marketing campaign to help in rebuilding the enterprise.
“It’s a blessing,” she stated of the donations and sort phrases from neighborhood members.
In the meantime the house owners of Hafiz Sisters Magnificence Provide at 59 W. Chelten Ave. try to determine their subsequent transfer after their store was looted early Wednesday morning.
The safety gate on the storefront was dislodged after which looters smashed the entrance glass window. Petty money and wonder provides had been taken from the shop.
“We’re blessed that they didn’t include purchasing luggage, like they did different shops and take every part,” stated Zainab Hafiz-Moore, a co-owner of magnificence provide retailer.
“We will come again God prepared,” she stated.
Hafiz-Moore alongside together with her sister, Atiyya Flournoy, and their husbands, Jerrell Flournoy and Troy Moore, opened the store on Chelten Avenue final 12 months, turning into one in all Philadelphia’s few Black-owned magnificence provide house owners.
The sisters had been pressured to shutter their enterprise for the final two days because of the looting harm.
“We’re type of in a stall sample as a result of we try to find out what our subsequent transfer is and proceed doing enterprise below these circumstances,” stated Troy Moore, a co-owner of Hafiz Sisters.
“The unhappy factor about this complete factor is that sadly everyone seems to be pressured due to COVID, and so they simply took some alternatives to do some issues maliciously. Sadly we’ve got that 10% that at all times is searching for a motive to do some harm the place they will get away with it and this may occasionally fall below that umbrella.”
Troy Moore stated the looting and vandalism of native business corridors and purchasing facilities could have a ripple affect on the affected communities.
“It impacts all of us, particularly the seniors that look to have that consolation to stroll to their neighborhood purchasing facilities, versus having to drive (a) distance,” he stated.
