Dennis and Soon's smoke shop got looted

My parents Dennis and Soon have put their life into building Cigarland up for over 15 years in downtown Bellevue. They opened 7 days a week including most holidays to give their kids a decent life and make a nice home for themselves here. It's been our family behind the counter the entire time. We were already in a rough patch. Last year the strip we operate on was sold to a developer, giving us 2-3 years before we get vacated and replaced with a 21 story condo tower, making the business he built from scratch practically unsellable. Dennis set his mind on giving it his all for those 2 years and saving up the revenue to move to a small town where he could settle down and run an ice cream shop for a few years. He pushed himself to work and strategize to please the customers and we were seeing results. We were making money. Then Covid hit. The lockdown put us out of business for weeks and we came back to see business down to a quarter of what it used to be. We were hemorrhaging money in the pandemic economy. But we believed we'd weather the covid storm if we kept our chin up and kept working as hard as we have been. Anyways, we didn't think it could get any worse.

On Sunday, the rioting and looting in Seattle spread to Bellevue. The store was gutted by looters. Inventory was almost completely wiped out by theft and the store was  ransacked . The damage is unreal. And far beyond our insurance coverage as we'd overextended ourselves on inventory to compensate for having an unsellable storefront. We were financially limping as it was and now we're absolutely crippled. And they were just 5 years away from retirement.

The 60,000 goal does not represent even close to what my parents have lost. Our family is strong, we have handled setbacks and we can handle one more. We don't want to be greedy. This is our estimate of what it would take to make them whole again and not allow a single disastrous evening to erase years of their time, effort, and health.

If you took the time to read, and you feel sympathy for my parents, God bless. If you can donate to help rebuild their livelihood, I'll bless the shit out of you myself. Thank you.

Paul Hwang
If you've been to cigarland, you know me