Long Beach businessowners demand increased safety to spark downtown comeback

LONG BEACH, Calif. - Lawmakers met in Long Beach Tuesday examining ways to help businesses downtown recover from recent challenging years.

"The best way to address challenges is to have an activated corridor, have an activated downtown," said Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson. "The more we activate it, the safer community we have."

Richardson and Matt Haney led the event. Haney is a California State Assembly member from San Francisco, and chair of a select committee on downtown recovery efforts statewide.

As FOX 11 witnessed, workers downtown told Haney safety is a top priority.

"I think that’s the one thing that’s deterring our businesses in downtown right now, is wanting better safety measures," one worker told Haney.

Multiple retail stores are noticeably vacant in downtown Long Beach.

According to Clare Le Bras, the General Manager of The Ordinary Tavern, she’d like to see more families downtown.

"Families aren’t coming down because they don’t feel safe," said Le Bras.

Le Bras said 2023 was a tough year for restaurants in Long Beach, but things have slowly turned around in 2024.

"If you talk to any businessowner or manager around here, they’ll say ‘23 was a really bad year," said Le Bras. "Whoever got out of ’23 was barely hanging on."

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Haney told FOX 11 that helping families feel safe in downtown cities will help businesses as well.

"We need to have policing that is out and visible, confronting and addressing crimes," said Haney. "I think if you look around in Long Beach you’re seeing some progress there, but the state needs to support that."

In recent weeks, FOX 11 has reported on several burglaries and acts of vandalism in Long Beach.

"We need security," said Le Bras. "If we have secure spaces where families can be and have lunch [it will help business], but until [families] feel secure down here, I don’t think we’ll get downtown back."