Shop owner's plea as California reopens: 'I need customers'

California is just days away from reopening its economy but business owners who have struggled in the past year still face an uncertain future

LOS ANGELES -- During the darkest days of the coronavirus pandemic, Martha Medina would occasionally slip into her shuttered store on Los Angeles’ oldest street to ensure everything was secure. Colorful folklorico dresses from each of Mexico's 32 states lined the walls. Black charro suits worn by mariachis and adorned with ornate gold or silver trim hung from a rack in the back. Brightly painted Dia de los Muertos folk art skulls and figurines were safely locked behind a glass case. Missing were customers, employees and happy pulses of traditional Latin music such as cumbia, mariachi and son jarocho, the Veracruz sound. “Those days I felt very sad,” Medina said. “I had the feeling I would never open the shop again.”