The new Skid Row Care Campus offers homeless people health care and a place to rest, charge their phones, grab some food, or even get connected with housing.
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Angela Hart
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KFF Health News
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Topline:
The Skid Row Care Campus officially opened this spring with ample offerings for people living on the streets of this historically downtrodden neighborhood
Harm reduction: The Skid Row facility shows Los Angeles County leaders’ embrace of the principle of harm reduction, a range of more lenient strategies that can include helping people more safely use drugs, as they contend with a homeless population estimated around 75,000 — among the largest of any county in the nation.
Services offered: There are 22 recovery beds and 48 additional beds for mostly older homeless people, arts and wellness programs, a food pantry, and pet care. For those working toward sobriety, clinicians are on site to offer mental health and addiction treatment. Skid Row’s first methadone clinic is set to open here this year.
Inside a bright new building in the heart of Skid Row, homeless people hung out in a canopy-covered courtyard — some waiting to take a shower, do laundry, or get medication for addiction treatment. Others relaxed on shaded grass and charged their phones as an intake line for housing grew more crowded.
The Skid Row Care Campus officially opened this spring with ample offerings for people living on the streets of this historically downtrodden neighborhood. Pop-up fruit stands and tent encampments lined the sidewalks, as well as dealers peddling meth and fentanyl in open-air drug markets. Some people, sick or strung out, were passed out on sidewalks as pedestrians strolled by on a recent afternoon.
For those working toward sobriety, clinicians are on site to offer mental health and addiction treatment. Skid Row’s first methadone clinic is set to open here this year. For those not ready to quit drugs or alcohol, the campus provides clean syringes to more safely shoot up, glass pipes for smoking drugs, naloxone to prevent overdoses, and drug test strips to detect fentanyl contamination, among other supplies.
As many Americans have grown increasingly intolerant of street homelessness, cities and states have returned to tough-on-crime approaches that penalize people for living outside and for substance use disorders. But the Skid Row facility shows Los Angeles County leaders’ embrace of the principle of harm reduction, a range of more lenient strategies that can include helping people more safely use drugs, as they contend with a homeless population estimated around 75,000 — among the largest of any county in the nation. Evidence shows the approach can help individuals enter treatment, gain sobriety, and end their homelessness, while addiction experts and county health officials note it has the added benefit of improving public health.
“We get a really bad rap for this, but this is the safest way to use drugs,” said Darren Willett, director of the Center for Harm Reduction on the new Skid Row Care Campus. “It’s an overdose prevention strategy, and it prevents the spread of infectious disease.”
Despite a decline in overdose deaths, drug and alcohol use continues to be the leading cause of death among homeless people in the county. Living on the streets or in sordid encampments, homeless people saddle the health care system with high costs from uncompensated care, emergency room trips, inpatient hospitalizations, and, for many of them, their deaths. Harm reduction, its advocates say, allows homeless people the opportunity to obtain jobs, taxpayer-subsidized housing, health care, and other social services without being forced to give up drugs. Yet it’s hotly debated.
Politicians around the country, including Gov. Gavin Newsom in California, are reluctant to adopt harm reduction techniques, such as needle exchanges or supervised places to use drugs, in part because they can be seen by the public as condoning illicit behavior. Although Democrats are more supportive than Republicans, a national poll this year found lukewarm support across the political spectrum for such interventions.
Anthony Willis, who has an apartment on Skid Row, spends most of his time on the streets. He says he’s addicted to crack and alcohol.
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Angela Hart
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KFF Health News
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Los Angeles is defying President Donald Trump’s agenda as he advocates for forced mental health and addiction treatment for homeless people — and locking up those who refuse. The city has also been the scene of large protests against Trump’s immigration crackdown, which the president has fought by deploying National Guard troops and Marines.
Trump’s most detailed remarks on homelessness and substance use disorder came during his campaign, when he attacked people who use drugs as criminals and said that homeless people “have no right to turn every park and sidewalk into a place for them to squat and do drugs.” Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. reinforced Trump’s focus on treatment.
“Secretary Kennedy stands with President Trump in prioritizing recovery-focused solutions to address addiction and homelessness,” said agency spokesperson Vianca Rodriguez Feliciano. “HHS remains focused on helping individuals recover, communities heal, and help make our cities clean, safe, and healthy once again.”
A comprehensive report led by Margot Kushel, a professor of medicine at the University of California-San Francisco, this year found that nearly half of California’s homeless population had a complex behavioral health need, defined as regular drug use, heavy drinking, hallucinations, or a recent psychiatric hospitalization.
The chaos of living outside, she said — marked by violence, sexual assault, sleeplessness, and lack of housing and health care — can make it nearly impossible to get sober.
Skid Row Care Campus
The new care campus is funded by about $26 million a year in local, state, and federal homelessness and health care money, and initial construction was completed by a Skid Row landlord, Matt Lee, who made site improvements on his own, according to Anna Gorman, chief operating officer for community programs at the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services. Operators say the campus should be able to withstand potential federal spending cuts because it is funded through a variety of sources.
Glass front doors lead to an atrium inside the yellow-and-orange complex. It was designed with input from homeless people, who advised the county not just on the layout but also on the services offered on-site. There are 22 recovery beds and 48 additional beds for mostly older homeless people, arts and wellness programs, a food pantry, and pet care. Even bunnies and snakes are allowed.
John Wright, who goes by the nickname “Slim,” works as a harm reduction specialist at the new Skid Row Care Campus, a center that provides both harm reduction services and treatment for mental illness and substance use disorder.
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Angela Hart
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KFF Health News
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John Wright, 65, who goes by the nickname Slim, mingled with homeless visitors one afternoon in May, asking them what they needed to be safe and comfortable.
“Everyone thinks we’re criminals, like we’re out robbing everyone, but we aren’t,” said Wright, who is employed as a harm reduction specialist on the campus and is trying, at his own pace, to stop using fentanyl. “I’m homeless and I’m a drug addict, but I’m on methadone now so I’m working on it,” he said.
Nearby on Skid Row, Anthony Willis rested in his wheelchair while taking a toke from a crack pipe. He’d just learned about the new care campus, he said, explaining that he was homeless for roughly 20 years before getting into a taxpayer-subsidized apartment on Skid Row. He spends most of his days and nights on the streets, using drugs and alcohol.
The drugs, he said, help him stay awake so he can provide companionship and sometimes physical protection for homeless friends who don’t have housing. “It’s tough sometimes living down here; it’s pretty much why I keep relapsing,” said Willis, who at age 62 has asthma and arthritic knees. “But it’s also my community.”
Willis said the care campus could be a place to help him kick drugs, but he wasn’t sure he was ready.
Research shows harm reduction helps prevent death and can build long-term recovery for people who use substances, said Brian Hurley, an addiction psychiatrist and the medical director for the Bureau of Substance Abuse Prevention and Control at the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. The techniques allow health care providers and social service workers to meet people when they’re ready to stop using drugs or enter treatment.
“Recovery is a learning activity, and the reality is relapse is part of recovery,” he said. “People go back and forth and sometimes get triggered or haven’t figured out how to cope with a stressor.”
Swaying public opinion
Under harm reduction principles, officials acknowledge that people will use drugs. Funded by taxpayers, the government provides services to use safely, rather than forcing people to quit or requiring abstinence in exchange for government-subsidized housing and treatment programs.
Los Angeles County is spending hundreds of millions to combat homelessness, while also launching a multiyear “By LA for LA” campaign to build public support, fight stigma, and encourage people to use services and seek treatment. Officials have hired a nonprofit, Vital Strategies, to conduct the campaign including social media advertising and billboards to promote the expansion of both treatment and harm reduction services for people who use drugs.
The organization led a national harm reduction campaign and is working on overdose prevention and public health campaigns in seven states using roughly $70 million donated by Michael Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York.
“We don’t believe people should die just because they use drugs, so we’re going to provide support any way that we can,” said Shoshanna Scholar, director of harm reduction at the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services. “Eventually, some people may come in for treatment but what we really want is to prevent overdose and save lives.”
Los Angeles also finds itself at odds with California’s Democratic governor. Newsom has spearheaded stricter laws targeting homelessness and addiction and has backed treatment requirements for people with mental illness or who use drugs. Last year, California voters approved Proposition 36, which allows felony charges for some drug crimes, requires courts to warn people they could be charged with murder for selling or providing illegal drugs that kill someone, and makes it easier to order treatment for people who use drugs.
Even San Francisco approved a measure last year that requires welfare recipients to participate in treatment to continue receiving cash aid. Mayor Daniel Lurie recently ordered city officials to stop handing out free drug supplies, including pipes and foil, and instead to require participation in drug treatment to receive services. Lurie signed a recovery-first ordinance, which prioritizes “long-term remission” from substance use, and the city is also expanding policing while funding new sober-living sites and treatment centers for people recovering from addiction.
‘Harm encouragement’
State Sen. Roger Niello, a Republican who represents conservative suburbs outside Sacramento, says the state needs to improve the lives of homeless people through stricter drug policies. He argues that providing drug supplies or offering housing without a mandate to enter treatment enables homeless people to remain on the streets.
Proposition 36, he said, needs to be implemented forcefully, and homeless people should be required to enter treatment in exchange for housing.
“I think of it as tough love,” Niello said. “What Los Angeles is doing, I would call it harm encouragement. They’re encouraging harm by continuing to feed a habit that is, quite frankly, killing people.”
Keith Humphreys, who worked in the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations and pioneered harm reduction practices across the nation, said that communities should find a balance between leniency and law enforcement.
“Parents need to be able to walk their kids to the park without being traumatized. You should be able to own a business without being robbed,” he said. “Harm reduction and treatment both have a place, and we also need prevention and a focus on public safety.”
Cindy Ashley hugs her companion dog on an afternoon in late May. She lost her housing due to the hospitalization and was homeless.
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Angela Hart
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KFF Health News
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Just outside the Skid Row Care Campus, Cindy Ashley organized her belongings in a cart after recently leaving a local hospital ER for a deep skin infection on her hand and arm caused by shooting heroin. She also regularly smokes crack, she said.
She was frantically searching for a home so she could heal from two surgeries for the infection. She learned about the new care campus and rushed over to get her name on the waiting list for housing.
“I’m not going to make it out here,” she said, in tears.
KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.
Fiona Ng
is LAist's deputy managing editor and leads a team of reporters who explore food, culture, history, events and more.
Published June 24, 2026 11:00 AM
Kogi x Sam Woo collab is happening this weekend.
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Courtesy Kogi BBQ
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Topline:
Two icons of Los Angeles are coming together in Alhambra for a food pop-up this weekend — each has carved a unique place in Asian America.
Why now: On one end you have Kogi, bringing its Korean-Mexican fusion kimchi taco and blackjack quesadilla — and its food truck — to the collab. On the other is Sam Woo, old-school purveyor of Cantonese taste lending its char siu and roast duck from its OG location on Valley between 5th and 6th.
Why it matters: Together, they represent two generations of immigrant entrepreneurship that reshaped how L.A. eats.
Read on ... for details and the stories of immigrant entrepreneurship the two restaurants embody ...
Two icons of Los Angeles are coming together in Alhambra for a food pop-up this weekend — each has carved a unique place in Asian America.
On one end you have Kogi, bringing its Korean-Mexican fusion kimchi taco and blackjack quesadilla — and its food truck — to the collab. On the other is Sam Woo, old-school purveyor of Cantonese taste lending its char siu and roast duck from its OG location on Valley between 5th and 6th.
Together, they represent two generations of immigrant entrepreneurship that reshaped how L.A. eats.
Kogi x Sam Woo Where: Sam Woo BBQ, 514 Valley Blvd., Alhambra When: Saturday, 11 a.m.-3 p.m. | Sunday, 4-8 p.m.
“The best way to do it would be to come together like Voltron, but be ourselves separately,” said Roy Choi, chef and founder of Kogi BBQ. “So don't do anything to your roast duck. Don't do anything to your char siu. Don't do anything to our blackjack quesadilla. Don't do anything to our taco.”
The mash-up features two items – roast duck kimchi taco, and char siu blackjack quesadilla. The best-of-both-worlds concept extends to where the food will be served.
“ My whole vision was for Kogi truck to be parked in front,” said Karen Cheung, daughter of Sam Woo’s original owner.
Kogi x Sam Woo
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Courtesy Kogi and Sam Woo
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From Chinatown to everywhere
Restaurants come and go, but Sam Woo has remained the byword for Cantonese barbeque in Los Angeles and beyond for more than four decades.
On Christmas Day 1979, new immigrant Peter Cheung opened a stand serving take-out roast duck, char siu and the likes in Chinatown, bringing the family craft from Hong Kong to L.A.
“At the time, it was just my dad, my brother, and me,” Cheung, 67, said in Cantonese. “We hired a cashier and a meat cutter, that was about it.”
Cheung also brought over the Chinese name from the family business back home. It means “three harmonies” – among earth, heaven, and man. The English name Sam Woo was chosen because it sounded like the Cantonese words.
Sam Woo in Alhambra.
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Fiona Ng
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LAist
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In the late 1970s, his clientele was mainly Chinese and Vietnamese immigrants in the then-bustling enclave, with a small handful of customers coming in from Monterey Park.
Back then, he said, “All the restaurants were concentrated in Chinatown.”
As the Chinese-speaking diaspora expanded to the San Gabriel Valley, so too did Sam Woo. Cheung opened a Monterey Park location in 1981 (now closed) and the Alhambra outpost on Valley Boulevard in 1983.
Today, Cheung and his family own and operate four locations across the L.A. region — the oldest in Alhambra.
That little storefront served a loyal legion of eaters, including my family, who moved to Alhambra in the early 1990s — and a kid named Roy Choi.
Roy Choi, left, hands out food from his Kogi BBQ truck in Maywood in January 2024.
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Allen J. Schaben
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Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
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When Roy met Sam
Choi was hanging out in Alhambra and nearby 626 cities during high school and into college, at all-night Asian cafes and their parking lots where a subculture centered around modified Japanese cars took root.
“It was the cafes and the barbecue spots back in Alhambra that were early on in having a kind of a meeting ground for young Asian youth,” Choi said. “It might have been the birth of the AZN movement, you know what I'm saying?”
One place he always ate at was Sam Woo.
Strip mall signs in San Gabriel point to a majority Asian population in this part of Los Angeles.
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Samanta Helou Hernandez
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LAist
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“One of the top five things to eat for me is roast duck or roast pork over rice with the sauce that drips down into it,” he said. “That's where I started really eating barbecue — and this is before I was a chef.”
Forty-three years since it opened, the hole-in-the-wall in Alhambra has not been changed — inside or out. Karen remembers hanging out at the shop with her sisters growing up, filling small containers of sauces while their parents ran the operation.
“ When you walk into Alhambra, you feel like you are going back in time,” Karen said. “That's what people remember Sam Woo as, like the Mahjong clock, or the vintage menu that you do not ever see anymore. That's people's memories.”
Karen, one of Peter’s four children, read the story – and fired off a DM.
“I was like, ‘We're so honored. Out of all the restaurants you could talk about, you mentioned Sam Woo,” Karen said. “‘Let's do a collab.’”
Six months of planning later, with hundreds of pounds of char siu ready to be cooked, the crossover is happening.
“The inspiration is how delicious their food is [and] the longevity of their restaurant,” Choi said, whose Kogi has redefined fusion cooking and the food truck experience for 19 years and counting.
“We wanna bring something really special to Alhambra," he said. "Just a moment that you could say, ‘I was there.’”
Destiny Torres
is LAist's general assignment reporter and brings you the top news you need for the day.
Published June 24, 2026 10:27 AM
The Daisy Chain Fields music festival, founded by Olivia Rodrigo, will debut at Irvine's Great Park in August.
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Kevin Mazur
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Getty Images
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Topline:
Presale is underway for the largest music festival to hit the Great Park in Irvine. The Daisy Chain Fields music festival, founded by Olivia Rodrigo, will feature Chappell Roan, Stevie Nicks and more.
What you need to know: It will be held on Aug. 29 and is expected to draw 45,000 guests. Tickets range from $250 to $1,250.
Getting there: Parking passes will cost $95. Shuttles to the festival will also be available from UC Irvine and the Honda Center for $50 per person. Those tickets must be purchased in advance because seats are limited.
Who is playing? An all-woman setlist includes Bikini Kill, Die Spitz, Doechii, Eli, Garbage, KATSEYE, Mitski, Not For Radio, Quiet Light, Rachel Chinourir, Santigold, and The Breeders, all across two stages. Special guests include Karen O, Sarah McLachlan and Stevie Nicks.
What else is there? All proceeds from the festival will go to 10 nonprofit partners, including the Black Mamas Matter Alliance, the Center for Reproductive Rights, the Johns Hopkins Center for Indigenous Health and Planned Parenthood.
Officials say: Irvine Mayor Larry Agran said in a statement, “This summer has been nothing short of exceptional, with the U.S. Men’s National Team making the Great Park its home base while competing in the 2026 World Cup, and now Daisy Chain Fields bringing a modern-day celebration of women in music, creativity, and community to Irvine.”
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The U.S. is easing its restrictions on Iran's World Cup team, allowing the squad to travel into the country two days before its next match, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said Tuesday.
More details: The team will still be required to leave after Friday's match in Seattle, a department spokesperson said. A spokesperson for the Iran Football Federation confirmed that the team will leave its base camp in Tijuana, Mexico, on Wednesday for Seattle.
Why it matters: Iran's squad has complained about the travel restrictions levied on the team, and the challenges it has faced since the outbreak of war. Iran in March sought to move its group-stage matches to Mexico, with which it has diplomatic ties. Its request to move its base camp from Tucson, Arizona, to Tijuana was granted two weeks before the team's arrival. Several team officials and members of the support staff have been barred from traveling into the U.S. with the team.
Read on... for more on the change.
The U.S. is easing its restrictions on Iran's World Cup team, allowing the squad to travel into the country two days before its next match, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said Tuesday.
The team will still be required to leave after Friday's match in Seattle, a department spokesperson said. A spokesperson for the Iran Football Federation confirmed that the team will leave its base camp in Tijuana, Mexico, on Wednesday for Seattle.
"This was planned on our end," Andrew Giuliani, the executive director of the White House FIFA Task Force, told The Associated Press. "We were going to look at how the first two movements went, and if they went smoothly, we would extend the extra day in light of the longer travel time."
The policy change was first reported by NBC News and comes as officials from both countries negotiate over how to end the war in Iran.
Iran's squad has complained about the travel restrictions levied on the team, and the challenges it has faced since the outbreak of war. Iran in March sought to move its group-stage matches to Mexico, with which it has diplomatic ties. Its request to move its base camp from Tucson, Arizona, to Tijuana was granted two weeks before the team's arrival. Several team officials and members of the support staff have been barred from traveling into the U.S. with the team.
For the first two matches, near Los Angeles, the team was not permitted to travel until the day before. Iran coach Amir Ghalenoei repeatedly said that restriction disadvantaged the team, especially when it had less than 24 hours on the ground before its noon match Sunday.
"Right now we need recovery more than anything," Ghalenoei said through an interpreter after the 0-0 draw against Belgium. "The conditions have been extremely hard for us."
It's not uncommon for teams to travel a day before the match, and it's in line with FIFA regulations, which state that "each team shall travel from its team base camp to the match venue one day before matchday (MD‑1) and in exceptional cases on MD‑2, and shall return to their team base camp after the match (on MD/MD+1)."
But Iran had asked for more time to acclimate to host cities and recover after matches, especially for the 1,200-mile (1,930-kilometer) trip to Seattle. The team is scheduled to train on Thursday at the University of Washington.
"We don't ask for much. We just ask for the same procedure as for all the other 47 teams," Iran captain Alireza Jahanbakhsh said Sunday. "Hopefully we can bring everyone who is involved and help us with us."
The Iran team has also said it experienced difficulties entering and exiting the U.S. each time it made the 127-mile (204-kilometer) flight between Tijuana and Los Angeles. The typically short trip took five hours the day before its first match against New Zealand, team captain Mehdi Taremi said.
Hours before Sunday's match against Belgium, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told Fox News the Iranians had "tried to get somebody in yesterday" who had direct ties to Iran's Revolutionary Guard. In a statement, the soccer federation vociferously pushed back, calling the claim "an outright and undeniable lie."
Iran's players and coaches have mostly steered clear of outright commentary on the war. "We are here for football, not politics," Ghalenoei said Saturday. But the team hasn't shied from highlighting the victims of a deadly missile strike on an elementary school at the start of the war in the Middle East, likely launched by the U.S.
Players wore gold-colored pins with the number "168" on their jackets when they disembarked in Mexico on June 7, referencing the number of people killed in the attack, mostly young girls. They left a goodbye note in the locker room at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, after their match Sunday, calling for peace "among all nations" and with the hashtags #168 and #minab, the school's name.
At Iran's last training session Tuesday in Tijuana before departing for Seattle, four small flags had been stuck into the turf, each bearing the number 168.
It's unclear whether Iran's upcoming opponent, Egypt, will also be allowed to arrive in Seattle two days early. After its 3-1 victory against New Zealand in Vancouver Sunday, Egypt asked to fly directly to Seattle. FIFA denied that request, citing a lack of security resources to accommodate the last-minute demand. Egypt returned to its base camp in Spokane, Washington, a 45-minute flight from Seattle.
Egypt's national team did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Copyright 2026 NPR
Libby Rainey
has been following the World Cup in Los Angeles.
Published June 24, 2026 10:09 AM
The warehouse fire is complicating an otherwise jovial time in Boyle Heights, a predominantly Latino neighborhood that's gone all out for the World Cup.
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Libby Rainey
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LAist
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Topline:
As Mexico prepares to play its third match against the Czech Republic Wednesday night, the Boyle Heights warehouse fire is not fully out. Questions about air quality and public health in the communities closest to the warehouse remain. The disaster is complicating an otherwise jovial time in Boyle Heights, a predominantly Latino neighborhood that's gone all out for the World Cup.
What organizers say: Some groups including the Boyle Heights Chamber of Commerce, which organized last week's World Cup watch party, have expressed concern that the fire and the air quality issues it produces are disrupting small businesses in the neighborhood.
The backstory: A massive frozen warehouse run by Lineage Logistics caught on fire nearly a week ago has shrouded parts of Los Angeles in smoky air. But what exactly is in the air is still unclear.
Read on.. for what local businesses and fans are seeing and saying.
A crowd clad in green jerseys took over the street in Boyle Heights last Thursday to watch Mexico battle it out with South Korea in a World Cup showdown made for Los Angeles.
The block party on 1st Street at Mariachi Plaza watched Mexico win its second game of the tournament 1-0. But nearby, a fire that sparked at a massive frozen warehouse run by Lineage Logistics was in its second day of burning.
A week later, as Mexico prepares to play its third match against the Czech Republic Wednesday night, the fire's not fully out. Questions about air quality and public health in the communities closest to the warehouse remain. The disaster is complicating an otherwise jovial time in Boyle Heights, a predominantly Latino neighborhood that's gone all out for the World Cup.
"The community loves the World Cup," said Anthony Correa, who works at the Boyle Heights Arts Conservatory on Cesar Chavez Boulevard. "So it's really awkward to have this fire because everyone wants to be outside, the safest thing in the immediate area is to be inside."
Boyle Heights has hosted a World Cup watch parties to celebrate Mexico as it plays in the global tournament.
"But on Friday, the shelter in place order was reissued," Walker wrote. "The ominous cloud was back."
The on-again, off-again smoke and bad air carried into this week. On Tuesday morning, Cesar Chavez and 1st Streets were quiet and hazy. Street vendors and storefronts were selling Mexico jerseys.
" They deserve to know what risks remain, and they deserve clear information they can understand and use to make decisions for themselves and their families," she said.
At Brooklyn Avenue Pizza in Boyle Heights, bartender Rodrigo Luna said the restaurant had been forced to close its outdoor area due to the smoke. The empty patio on the sidewalk was draped in national flags from around the world, but had no tables or chairs. Still, he said, there was a big crowd inside for the Mexico game last week.
Crowds packed a block party near Mariachi Plaza to watch Mexico defeat South Korea one day after the fire sparked.
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Libby Rainey
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Luna lives in Boyle Heights, and says he's had itchy eyes and trouble breathing since the fire broke out.
" Hopefully they stop it pretty soon," he said from behind the bar.
Green jerseys have taken over some streets in Boyle Heights as Mexico plays in the 2026 World Cup.
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Libby Rainey
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LAist
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Some groups including the Boyle Heights Chamber of Commerce, which organized last week's World Cup watch party, have expressed concern that the fire and the air quality issues it produces are disrupting small businesses in the neighborhood.
"Small businesses are struggling due to the Lineage fire, many of them are closing and they're worried about how they're going to pay their bills this month," said Rudy Espinoza, the president of the community organization Inclusive Action, in an Instagram video promoting a fund for those businesses and vendors who might be losing out during the fire.
At Casa Fina, a Mexican restaurant near Mariachi Plaza, just a few customers were seated for lunch on Tuesday.
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Libby Rainey
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LAist
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At Casa Fina, a Mexican restaurant near Mariachi Plaza, just a few customers were seated for lunch on Tuesday. Server Mario Mosqueda gestured to the empty tables.
" This day is very, very slow," he said.
He wasn't sure if the fire had anything to do with it, but said he hoped it would be a packed house for Mexico's match on Wednesday evening. When Mexico played South Korea, he said he netted the most in tips he'd made all year — nearly $600.
Mosqueda said he wasn't much of a soccer fan. But it's the World Cup. So he was wearing his Mexico jersey anyway, with a smile.
Game details
Time: Tonight's game kicked off at 6 p.m.
Where: Broadcast on TV on FOX (English) and Fox Deportes (Spanish)
