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Barber Avila, owner of Brooklyn Lab Barbershop, cuts the hair of a client at his shop on Wed., Aug. 7.<\/p>\n
Laura Anaya-Morga \/ Boyle Heights Beat<\/p>\n
This article<\/a> was originally published on\u00a0Aug. 7\u00a0by Boyle Heights Beat<\/a>, a nonprofit newsroom of the Los Angeles Local News Initiative serving Boyle Heights and East L.A.<\/p>\n Two months after an oil spill shut down streets in East Los Angeles and disrupted businesses along the Cesar E. Chavez Avenue corridor, many owners are still waiting for reimbursement.<\/p>\n
The May spill forced street closures after crews punctured an underground pipeline, sending more than 25,000 gallons<\/a> of crude oil onto nearby streets and into storm drains. Along the commercial corridor, owners of restaurants, barbershops, and bike shops had to cancel appointments, delay deliveries, or close their doors for a week as cleanup crews worked in the area.<\/p>\n In the days following the spill, a survey of nearly 50 businesses near the intersection of East Cesar E. Chavez and Eastern avenues found a 70% to 75% loss in revenue, according to Kelly LoBianco, director of the LA County Department of Economic Opportunity.<\/p>\n
“You know how the barbershop gets on a Friday. \u2026 We lost a lot of business that week,” said Barber Avila, owner of Brooklyn Lab Barbershop. Avila preferred not to share his first name for this story.<\/p>\n For the past month, Avila has been working with LA County and pipeline operator Pacific Pipeline System (PPS) to submit documents \u2013 including tax records, sales reports, and expenses \u2013 to show how the spill affected his business and file a claim for reimbursement<\/a>.<\/p>\n
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