Diary of a Boutique Owner

New Beginnings

It is a beautiful sunny day here in Southern California, the heat wave has finally loosened up and life is returning to normal.  That is probably true for most people besides myself.  I am gearing up to enter yet another transition of my career.  As of September 30th I will no longer have a store front in which to greet my customers as I have done for the last 1 1/2.  The District will now only be available on-line. Fear, excitement, and dread are some of the emotions I am currently having. 

In the last 3 years I have lost both my grandfather and my father, started my own business, found love, moved twice, and got a dog.  The journey  has been rewarding in itself, I loved the challenge of starting my own business.  I thrived doing the tenant Improvement work, the sleepless nights seemed vaguely exciting and filled with purpose. These are things that i will never regret.  Everything happens for a reason. 

I have learned who I am and what I am capable of in each of these events.  One may think losing your parents is the most difficult thing a person can go through and in many ways it is.  The thing that allowed me to recover was that I knew I had no control over their lives in any way shape or form.  In many ways it has been more difficult to love someone unconditionally and to overcome fears of abandonment,rejection, and failure, those are hard pills to swallow.

I think it is important for woman to share their struggles and experiences with other people.  I use to see it as a form or weakness but now I know it is an inner strength that is followed by peace.   

Letter to Various Agency's in the City of San Diego

This is the letter I sent to the various City of  San Diego agencies asking for help on June 11th, 2007.  CCDC finally contacted me yesterday hours before the news cameras showed up.  The Mayors office has failed to respond.  If you have any suggestions or comments I would love to hear your opinion. 

Thank you for taking time to read my blog.

Jennifer

My name is Jennifer Inga; I am a women Business owner in downtown San Diego. My store is called The District and is located at 1020 8 th Ave, San Diego, 92101. The District is a high end women's & men's clothing boutique.

The purpose of this letter is to discuss the environment surrounding my business. I signed my lease in December of 2005 full of promise and hope. The building located directly across the street, on the east side of 8 th Avenue was occupied and the businesses were doing fairly well. In March of 2006 the owner of the building evicted all of the tenants leaving the building vacant. It has been empty ever since, this would not be as troublesome if it did not attract the homeless, drug addicts and drug dealers in large quantities. I have called the police on multiple occasions for drug dealing in front of my store and for people doing drugs feet from my front door. They have gone from being semi-secretive to outright brazen.

I have also spoken with the undercover police in the neighborhood giving the descriptions and any info I may have. Starting a business in a developing area is tough and I knew there would be challenges along the way. However, it was my understanding that this was to be a developing area with the property that covers the south side of 8 th Avenue, all of the north side of Broadway and the northwest side of 9 th Avenue was to be turned into a high rise residential tower.

It feels as if it is far from progressing but regressing. It directly affects my business. I had a women call my store and say she was too afraid to walk in once she parked her car because two large men were dealing drugs next to the store. Last week a man was passed out drunk in the middle of the side walk and he had urinated on himself. This environment is progressively becoming more saturated by this type of behavior and no one wants to shop under these conditions.

I worry about my staff, customers and my own safety on a daily basis. My store is my livelihood and I have is invested not only my financial resources but time and hard work into my business. I am trying my best to stay afloat, but unfortunately my efforts may not be enough to overcome my environment. The City has Inadvertently created a human waste dump by having blocks of vacant buildings, sheltering the homeless & the drug dealers. I am pleading for more resources to control this growing problem for myself, other business owners and the region in general. It can never meet its greatest potential if this unlawful and dangerous activity is not controlled.

cc: Councilmember Kevin Faulconer, Mayor Jerry Sanders, Centre City Development Corporation: Fredic Mass, Robert A. McNeely, Kim John Kilkenny, Wayne Raffesberger, Jennifer LeSar, Janice Brown, Teddy Cruz, Chief Of Police: William M Lansdowne, Downtown San Diego Partnership, Clean & Safe Operations unit

Party at The District on July 6th

The District is Having a party on July 6th @ 8:00

1020 8th Ave

San Diego, CA 92101

RSVP 619-231-9533

Community awareness

Most of my clients are successful men and women who have their daily needs met with little thought or struggle. They are extremely nice people who I do enjoy sharing a cocktail with on occasion.   It is amazing to see how many of the people I meet are desensitized to other people plights.  Every morning we wake up and look at our MSN home page and we see the daily headline “2 children abducted from home”, “Flood devastates community hundreds feared dead and thousands without homes”, “The Darfur region is estimated to have 1,000,000 causalities in the next 2 years”.  We glance over this while drinking our $4.00 Starbucks latte and going over the list of things we need to get done today.  We have become an “I” society, very rarely do we step outside of ourselves and try to make a difference, no matter what size it is.  It’s easy to say there is not enough time in our day or there is nothing “I” could do about it anyway, it’s harder to acknowledge how insignificant we are as individuals and put the greater good for humanity above our own for even five minutes.  Just think what a difference one person devoting 5 minutes a day to others in need.  This may be gathering blankets for the homeless in your area, or volunteering at a head start program twice a month, or a simple as sitting down with a person who has been living on the streets and letting them know they are seen and cared about.  Just imagine what our cities and communities would be like if we all took the time to care about the others around us.

Political Rantings

We are inundated on a daily basis by the media, so much so that we have become numb.  We have become numb to the war in Iraq, the crisis in Sudan, homeless women & children living on the streets in our own cities.  What is wrong with us?   To date there have been over 50,000 Americans injured in Iraq, and over 3300 fatalities.  In the past year along there have been over 26,000 Iraq fatalities from security forces to civilians.  There are estimations that over 650,000 people have been injured or killed since the inception of this war.   

What are we doing about it?  Those are our husbands, wife's, children, brothers, sisters, and parents dying and being horribly maimed and injured.  We entered into this war under false pretenses and unfortunately our law makers either are too afraid of their careers to speak out, or are too satiated on the rewards they are receiving.

Most of the Iraq people are good loving people who are just trying to get by.  Do you think that the man who took his family to lunch at an outdoor cafe wanted to watch his loved ones die from a coward holding a bomb?   What are we doing to the future generations of Iraqis who have watched there families die and who have little or no hope of having a good education within the next couple of years because there are not enough schools left for kids to attend?
This war has cost over 650 million dollars so far. I could think of at least 20 things we could be doing in our own country to help improve the quality of life for the millions of people living below the poverty level.  Those children are our future.

My aim is to make people more aware and realize that everyone has a voice that should be heard.

There is currently a petition going around to impeach Bush the website is www.impeachbush.org there are currently over 868,000 signatures. If this does sway you in any way please make sure to vote to impeach Cheney because it would be a sad day in America if he became president.

Beginning to Sell On-line

We are in the process of launching our on-line website website right now.  We will be selling all of the great men's & women's item items you can find in the store plus a few more!  My goal is that I will be able to do 50% of my sales on-line.  We are using a company called OS Commerce to do all the back end work with.  It has been a pretty simple process so far.   When I decided to open my own business in 2005  I had no idea how much there was to learn.  Lets just hope I am moving in the right direction.   April 27th was my one year anniversary in business. 

The Art of Stying

Fashion show are underrated, they are looked upon as a frivolous event by others outside of the fashion world.  Very few know how crucial they are.  Fashion shows if done correctly have their own heartbeat and pulse.  They make you think outside of the perimeters of our every day life.   The men & women walk the catwalk with flowing hair and couture clothing, on my best day I can only aspire to look like that one day.

It often helps to use a production company, they will coordinate the models, the hair and make-up, the venue, and most importantly the clothing.  A good local San Diego based company is Gretchen Productions.  They have been in the business of beauty and fashion for close to 20 years if not more.   The website is www.gretchenproductions.com.   

Shoplifting

Yesterday afternoon I had 3 people come into my store.  One of the men had been in to look at an Ed Hardy shirt 3 or 4 times.  As one of the men were talking to me, the woman stole the shirt.  It had a retail value of $145, but emotionally it feels like a lot more then that.  I was so angry and pretty sure I knew where I could find them.  So off I went with my 40lb white puppy & a can of pepper spray to dispense justice. 

Let me pause for a second and give you a brief background about where my store is located.  It is within 2 blocks to the Gaslamp in downtown San Diego.  So right about when you reach the end of my block the drugs and homeless pick up the slack. 

These horrible excuses for human beings have a buddy that works for the barber shop a block away.  I stomp down there with every intention of showing them what happens when you get a  5'7'' white girl angry.  So I walk up to 5 or 6 men and women hanging out in front and proceed to unleash the fury on them.   Needless to say they started to scatter.  One of the guys told me he didn't know "white woman could get so mad"  well guess what we do & it's not pretty!

After hearing that they didn't know where they were I told them very matter-of-factly I had a can a pepper spray & a taser and was just itchin' for an excuse to use them.   I was dead serious too, it still infuriates me that someone would steal, how are theses people being raised?  Where are the morals & values that are supposed to be instilled within each of us? 

I was raised with a crazy Italian family and we lived by 2 rules.  Don't mess with our family, and don't mess with our business.  SImple rules to live by.

Book Club

This month the Book Club elected me to pick the next book.  It is really quite a task.  There are currently 10 -12 women counting on me to pick a book that is interesting, provocative, humorous, and thoughtful all within 300 pages.  It also has to be a book no one else has read.   So this month I choose Dancing Naked at the Edge of Dawn, by Kris Radish.  It is looking to be a promising read.   

I invite you to join us in this on-line discussion. 

Who is this so called owner?

I would like to take a minute to introduce myself.  I am a 28 year old woman business owner.  It will be a year this April since i opened my store called The District.  We carry men's & women's clothing and accessories, most of our items come from more independent designers just hovering below mainstream.  We were  voted best men's boutique for 2006 in San Diego's 944 magazine. 

I usually work 5-6 days a week accompanied by my faithful puppy Bella, who without fail barks at everyone who walks though my front door.  The store will be open one year in April, people say it gets easier after the first year I can only hope so.   We will be launching our on-line store in April so until then please take a look at our website www.thedistrictsd.com. 

I never was one of those girls who dreamed of owing their own clothing store, actually I was completely on the other side of that equation.  My mother opened a store when I was a little girl, so I spent much of my childhood in her store.  When I was "lucky" enough I went with her to LA on her 15 hour buying trips.  She passed away in 1992 from Cervical Cancer and my cousin took over the store.  I worked there for about five years, which I thought was enough retail to last me for years to come. 

After the land of retail and I parted ways, it was a tough struggle for me.  What else was there?  After much job searching and scheming I landed a job doing marketing in a real estate office.  This was the begin of my career in the San Diego real estate market, sadly my reign as Real Estate Princess was a short one.

In March of 2005 my father passed after a 6 year struggle with Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma.  I quit my job and had absolutely no clue what to do with myself.  I had taken care of my dad for so long I didn't know how to focus on myself.  So I took 6 months off, cooked a lot of food, did yard work and worked out.  I became so busy I didn't know how I would ever fit in working again.  As we all know that lifestyle is hard to maintain not being independently wealthy.

I came across a new line of clothing and loved what they were doing, within 2 weeks I was meeting with the CFO working on opening their 1st franchise store in San Diego.   That turned into my current store The District. I can only hope this is the beginning of something great.  Stay tuned for updates. 

Cheers   

Jennifer