Vandalism, theft won't stop plans of downtown Santa Cruz business
Handsome Beauty Bar goes with women's business mixer
Despite being struck with a one-two punch of criminal activity in recent weeks, the owner of a downtown small business said she plans to fight back with a show of resilience this weekend.
Handsome Beauty Bar`s front window on Pacific Avenue was tagged with spraypainted graffiti Monday, only a few weeks after her San Jose store was broken into, looted of its workers' equipment and left trashed.
Store owner Monisha Gowder, a lifelong Santa Cruz resident, said her four San Jose employees have been left fearful of working after dark after the Oct. 25 breakin. To have a second business targeted — freshly moved from its former Mission Street home to the downtown in September,
Gowder said, felt somehow personal.
“As I'm already dealing with one thing, something else happens to another location,” Gowder told the Sentinel. “It's just very weird and ironic that it's happening to two locations in two different cities. It's really put a burden on the morale of the
employees.”
Gowder said that she refused to let the crimes, however, slow her down for long. Despite some initial second thoughts, Gowder will host a women's small business mixer event Sunday afternoon, free and open to her peers across the city. Gowder, whose three-employee
Santa Cruz business provides various skin-related services and specializes in eyebrow work, said she hopes the weekend's party will be the first of many.
“My goal is to really bring the community together because I think that with the community bonding together, we can help each other in situations like this,” Gowder said. “Speaking for myself, I don't have a large community of people that I know that own businesses here and have gone through these types of situations.”
Gowder added that she hopes such small business events may help with cross-promotions, mentorship and just building a general support system.