The Brief

Suehiro Cafe has been a Little Tokyo staple for half a century, surviving the pandemic, the founder’s death and the current owner’s bout with cancer.

Ultimately, it will be the landlord who will end the restaurant's run.

After a months-long threat of eviction by Anthony Sperl who wants to make way for a new tenant, Suehiro’s owner Kenji Suzuki on Tuesday agreed in court to leave by January 16. He had at least wanted to stay open through the holidays for the sake of his employees.

His struggle to stay in Little Tokyo has become emblematic of the changes facing the historic neighborhood. Neighborhood activists say rising rents and land values have only been accelerated by the arrival of a new Metro station.

They’re calling on the city to help preserve legacy businesses like Suehiro, which they say give the neighborhood its character. A rally in support of Suehiro will be held Sunday at 2 p.m. outside the Little Tokyo Metro station.

Suzuki said at first he stayed quiet about his eviction woes. But as patrons and activists expressed outrage and concern about the loss of Little Tokyo businesses like his to the pandemic and gentrification, he changed his mind.

“Now I think I need to rock the boat and create some waves to let everybody know about what's happening and that Little Tokyo needs everybody's help,” Suzuki said.

The beginning of the end

Suzuki, whose mother opened the restaurant in 1972 with her sister and died of COVID-19 in 2021, found himself in a vulnerable position because he had been on a month-to-month lease for the last 10 years or so.

Suzuki said he saw trouble on the horizon when Sperl last year asked for $100,000 to enter into a long-term lease, which Suzuki could not afford, and raised the monthly rent from $6,400 dollars to $10,000 which Suzuki felt he had not choice but to pay.

But then Suzuki's lawyer Clifford Jung said that Sperl stopped cashing rent checks and started eviction proceedings, alleging nonpayment of rent. When that claim was dismissed, Sperl initiated a legal end to the landlord-tenant relationship with Suzuki, Jung said.

"(Sperl) just decided he didn't want to work with us anymore," Jung said.

Suzuki expected to be evicted by law enforcement as early as this week but during a court hearing Tuesday, the judge asked the two sides to confer and Jan. 16 was chosen as the date that Suehiro would vacate. Jung said the other option was to take the case to trial.

"If (Suzuki) wanted to go all the way, I would have done it," Jung said. "But he just wanted to try to find a way to get to the end."

Jung said that Suzuki reserves the right to file a separate action against Sperl if he wants. Neither Sperl nor his attorney Dennis Block could be reached for comment.

The lunch crowd at Suehiro Cafe enjoys specials like curry rice and miso-flavored pork.

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The community rallies

For months, the Little Tokyo community has been rallying to save the restaurant, which has been serving miso-flavored pork and curry rice, affordable to local seniors and downtown workers alike, in its current location for more than 35 years.

A pegboard at Suehiro Cafe lists the lunch specials.

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Recent days have seen Japanese American activists gathering signatures from patrons outside Suehiro calling for a stop to the eviction.

Kristin Fukushima, managing director of the Little Tokyo Community Council, said Monday that dozens of legacy businesses have been lost in recent years.

A coalition of Japanese American activists asked the public to support Suehiro's fight against its eviction.

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“We are at a point where Little Tokyo is facing an existential threat as to what our future is,” Fukushima said.

Reports that Sperl will replace Suehiro with a marijuana dispensary have been especially worrying.

Longtime Suehiro patron David Palos, holding his daughter, Lola, signed a petition to keep Suehiro Cafe in Little Tokyo.

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A coalition of Japanese American organizations said they would organize a boycott of a dispensary or any replacement that's not a fit for the neighborhood.

Mark Masaoka of the social justice group Nikkei Progressives said that Sperl's late mother, from whom he inherited Little Tokyo properties, had been a friend to local businesses and lived in the neighborhood herself.

Suehiro Cafe, opened 49 years ago by Junko Suzuki, is at a crossroads.

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Courtesy of Suehiro Cafe

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"She would have been horrified at the thought that he was tossing out all these Japanese American long-standing institutions here to replace them with what he is doing right now," Masaoka said.

Advocates say there need to be more ways to save struggling legacy businesses through efforts such as the Little Tokyo Community Impact Fund, which has raised about $750,000.

New faces in the neighborhood

Neighborhood advocates say that Sperl had already pushed out a neighboring Japanese American business, Family Mart. It's been replaced by Space City Vintage which moved its clothing store from the second floor to the first.

Several new tenants have moved into the upper-level space once occupied by Space City, including tattoo artist Stefan Farrera.

Farrera, who specializes in "American and Japanese traditional" art at Black Sun Tattoo, said that he had not even known that he shared a landlord with the restaurant, and he bemoaned its departure and potential replacement by a dispensary.

He declined to comment on Sperl and his history with other tenants but said the landlord had rented him an affordable space that he shares with a multicultural mix of creatives: a leather worker, plant seller, streetwear vendor and upcycle store. Together, he says, the new tenants have helped to bring a “charge” to Little Tokyo.

Stefan Farrera, owner of Black Sun Tattoo, shares the same landlord as Suehiro Cafe.

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“The space offers us an opportunity as small, small business owners to make our living doing what we want to do and I think that brings a DIY element to Little Tokyo, which is very big in our punk scenes,“ Farrera said.

What's next

As for Suzuki, in September, he opened a new Suehiro location downtown on Main Street in anticipation of being evicted.

He is also running a smaller restaurant in Chinatown — a juggling act that's tough on his shaky health. Suzuki, 61, is in remission from leukemia. Then in August, he was struck while in his car by a motorist in a stolen vehicle, a crash that's left his legs aching as he serves customers.

Despite the collision of challenges, Suzuki says he will fight to be able to serve his mother's dishes again in Little Tokyo.

“I know someday we will return,” Suzuki said. "We have to return. That’s almost a non-issue for me.”

As Los Angeles homeowners grapple with the expense of rebuilding after last year’s devastating fires, an L.A. City Councilmember is putting forward an idea that could lower some costs.

Councilmember Traci Park, who represents the Pacific Palisades, has introduced a motion to explore waiving part of the city’s portion of the local sales tax for fire victims who purchase rebuilding materials in the city.

The 1% of the local 9.75% sales tax that goes into the city’s general fund would be given back to consumers under the proposal. The waiver could apply to lumber, appliances and other rebuilding goods purchased within the city.

The motion, introduced Friday by Park and seconded by Councilmember John Lee, says: “The City should do everything within its power to alleviate the financial burden for these residents and businesses in order to facilitate their return and stabilize the Pacific Palisades community.”

Would it make much of a difference? 

Economists told LAist the proposal could help many homeowners mitigate the high cost of rebuilding, but likely wouldn’t tip the scales for under-insured, under-resourced property owners.

“It wouldn't hurt if it's very well designed and easy to use,” said Alexander Meeks, a director at the Santa Monica-based Milken Institute. “But I'm not sure if it's really going to tackle the scale of the financial challenge that survivors are facing.”

Meeks noted that the tax waiver wouldn’t lower up-front costs such as environmental testing, architectural design and permitting. And it may not help homeowners sourcing raw materials from outside the city.

Zhiyun Li, a UCLA Anderson School of Management economist, said the waiver could help some homeowners justify the additional cost of rebuilding more fire-safe structures.

“Homeowners must typically pay out of pocket to upgrade to IBHS+ standards, which are more stringent,” Li said. “The tax waiver could encourage upgrading to IBHS+ standards or investing more in mitigation, thereby reducing future risk and improving the likelihood of maintaining insurance coverage.”

What’s next for the proposal? 

The proposed tax relief would not be available to properties that have been sold since the fires started in January 2025.

The motion has been sent to the City Council’s budget and fire recovery committees. If approved by the full council, it would require the city administrative officer, the Office of Finance and the city attorney to report back to the council within 60 days on options for crafting a tax relief plan.

The motion calls for the report to consider factors such as how to minimize the burden of administering the tax relief, what documentation homeowners would have to submit and what it would cost the city to oversee the program.

Senate and House Republican leadership have resurrected a stalled plan to fund the Department of Homeland Security after a record 47-day funding lapse.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said in a joint statement on Wednesday that the House will take up a measure passed by the Senate last week to fund most of DHS except Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol through the end of September.

Republicans would then attempt to fund ICE and Border Patrol for three years using a party-line budget reconciliation bill that would not require support from Democrats.

"In following this two-track approach, the Republican Congress will fully reopen the Department, make sure all federal workers are paid, and specifically fund immigration enforcement and border security for the next three years so that those law-enforcement activities can continue uninhibited," Thune and Johnson wrote.

The agreement comes nearly a week after House Republicans dismissed an identical plan, refusing to take up the Senate-passed measure and instead passing a 60-day short term funding bill for all of DHS that had little chance of overcoming Democratic opposition in the Senate.

Johnson called the agreement a "joke" and President Donald Trump declined to publicly endorse the deal. Trump had previously resisted any package that did not include his push to overhaul federal elections known as the Save America Act.

"I think any deal they make, I'm pretty much not happy with it," Trump told reporters last week.

Democrats welcomed the agreement as in line with their pledge not to give ICE any more money without reforms after immigration enforcement agents killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis. But the deal does not include any of the policy demands Democrats are pressing for, such as a ban on masks for immigration enforcement officers and requiring warrants issued by a judge, not just the agency, to enter homes.

"For days, Republican divisions derailed a bipartisan agreement, making American families pay the price for their dysfunction," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., wrote in a statement Wednesday. "Throughout this fight, Senate Democrats never wavered."

Trump seemed to bless the revived plan earlier Wednesday, writing on social media that he wants a party-line bill to fund immigration enforcement on his desk by June 1.

"We are going to work as fast, and as focused, as possible to replenish funding for our Border and ICE Agents, and the Radical Left Democrats won't be able to stop us," Trump wrote.

Despite the shutdown, ICE has been minimally impacted because Republican lawmakers approved $75 billion for ICE through another party-line budget reconciliation bill last year.

Congress is on a two-week recess, but the Senate and House could move to fund all of DHS except ICE and CBP as early as Thursday using a procedure known as unanimous consent that allows the chambers to circumvent formal voting as long as no member objects.

Even during a recess when most members are not in Washington, this could be unpredictable, especially in the House, where many hard-line conservatives oppose a deal that does not fully fund DHS.

"Let's make this simple: caving to Democrats and not paying CBP and ICE is agreeing to defund Law Enforcement and leaving our borders wide open again," Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., a member of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus, wrote on X. "If that's the vote, I'm a NO."

If a member does object, that could require waiting for another vote when all members are back from recess.

Claudia Grisales contributed reporting.
Copyright 2026 NPR

California clocked its second-worst snowpack on record Wednesday, a potentially troubling signal ahead for fire season.

It’s an alarming end to a winter that saw abnormally dry conditions briefly wiped from California’s drought map in January, for the first time in a quarter-century.

Though precipitation to date has been near average, much of it fell as rain rather than snow. Then March’s record-breaking heat melted most of the snow that remains. The state’s major reservoirs are nevertheless brimming above historic averages and are flirting with capacity, and a smattering of snow, rain and thunderstorms are dousing last month’s heat wave.

But experts now warn that California’s case of the missing snowpack could herald an early fire season in the mountains.

On Wednesday, state engineers conducting the symbolic April 1 snowpack measurement at Phillips Station south of Lake Tahoe found no measurable snow in patches of white dotting the grassy field.

“I want to welcome you call to probably one of the quickest snow surveys we’ve had — maybe one where people could actually use an umbrella,” joked Karla Nemeth, director of the California Department of Water Resources. “We’re getting a lot of questions about are we heading into a hydrologic drought? The answer is, I don’t know.”

State data reports that California’s snowpack is closing out the season at an alarming 18% of average statewide, and an even more abysmal 6% of average in the northern mountains that feed California’s major reservoirs.

Only the extreme drought year of 2015 beat this year’s snowpack for the worst on record, measuring in at just 5% of average on April 1st, when the snow historically is at its deepest.

“I think everyone's anticipating that it will be a long, busy fire season,” said Lenya Quinn-Davidson, director of the UC Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources Fire Network.

“Without a snowpack, and with an early spring, it just means that there’s much more time for something like that to happen.”

‘It’s pretty bizarre up here’ 

In the city of South Lake Tahoe, which survived the massive Caldor Fire in the fall of 2021 without losing any structures, fire chief Jim Drennan said his department is already ramping up prevention efforts.

“It's pretty bizarre up here right now. It really seems like June conditions more than March,” Drennan said. “People are already turning the sprinklers on for their lawns.”

Without more precipitation, an early spring may complicate prescribed burning efforts. But Drennan said fire agencies in the Tahoe basin can start mechanically clearing fuels from forest areas earlier than usual.

“That means we can get more work done,” he said.

It also means homeowners need to start hardening their homes now, said Martin Goldberg, battalion chief and fuels management officer for the Lake Valley Fire Protection District, which protects unincorporated communities in the Lake Tahoe Basin’s south shore.

Goldberg urges residents to scour their yards for burnable materials, create defensible space and reach out to local fire departments with questions. The risks are widespread — from firewood, wooden fences, gas cans, plants, pine needles — even lawn furniture stacked against a house.

“In years past, I wouldn't even think of raking and clearing until May,” Goldberg said. “But my yard's completely cleared of snowpack, and it has been for a couple weeks now.”

‘A haystack fire’

Battalion chief David Acuña, a spokesperson for Cal Fire, said fire season is shaped by more than just one year’s snowpack.

Climate change has been remaking California’s fire seasons into fire years. And California’s recent average to abundant water years have fueled what Acuña called “bumper crops of vegetation and brush.”

“Most of California is like a haystack. And if you’ve ever seen a haystack fire, they burn very intensely because there's layers of fuel,” Acuña said.

Like Quinn-Davidson, Acuña wasn’t ready to make specific predictions about fires to come.

But John Abatzoglou, a professor of climatology at UC Merced, said the temperatures and snowpack conditions this year offer a glimpse of California in the latter decades of this century, as fossil fuel use continues to drive global temperatures higher.

How this year’s fires will play out will depend on when, where and how wind, heat, fuel and ignitions combine. But it foreshadows the consequences of a warmer California for water and fire under climate change.

“This,” Abatzoglou said, “is yet another stress test for the future in the state.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.