Spectrum Pharmacy has survived looting, a pandemic, a few robberies in between. Then a fire.
“At this point, you guys, I’m thinking maybe we should start writing the best survival guide for small business,” owner Jasmine Tran said in front of a crowd Saturday. “And the next time you guys are here will be my book signing.”
Elected officials and residents of Cambodia Town were crowded in front of Tran’s pharmacy, along with a next-door clinic in the East Anaheim Plaza shopping center, for a reopening celebration.
The strip mall at Anaheim Street and Lime Avenue was razed nearly two years ago in a catastrophic fire that engulfed multiple restaurants, a medical clinic, pharmacy, salon and a shoe store. The cause of the fire remains unknown, Deputy Fire Chief Donald Anderson said.
“But the real story begins in how this community in Central Long Beach businesses, Councilwoman Suely Saro, firefighters, Economic Development Department, our planners, how all of the community stepped up and responded in that moment,” said Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson.
Neither business officially closed, officials said. Tran continued to fill prescriptions remotely from her kitchen-turned-office, while Dr. Loan Truong of the Long Beach Primary Care Associates moved her practice into a newly vacated office down the street within four days of the fire.
“I called one of my contractor friends and I was just like, ‘I need you to fix this clinic,’ it has to be up and running by the end of the week,” she recalled.
An estimated cost of the damages and refurbishment was not mentioned during the ceremony. Dr. Truong said her landlord helped with the majority of the cost but said it was still expensive — $150,000, “for the interior.”
Despite being in the space for two months before “it burned to the ground,” Dr. Truong said she moved back in June without consideration to reopening elsewhere.
“My uncle started the clinic 40 years ago and most of our patients don’t really speak English, so it’s hard for them to find new locations,” she said.
Directing her closing remarks to her sons, Tran said wanted the day to reflect that “giving up is never the answer.”
“It’s an option, never the choice,” she said.
