Hear it from the store owners:

Los Angeles store owners feared the taxes would hinder already dwindling business, the brunt of which has crippled retail meccas like Robertson Blvd. in Beverly Hills and Montana Ave. in Santa Monica.

“You can have the most amazing store and merchandise, but you can’t make people buy things,” Becca Moon, the manager of Dewey, a boutique that plans to close at the end of April, told WWD in April. “There are no small stores opening anymore, and the ones around us in the neighborhood are closing.”



"Unbelievable," Dale Snowden, a sales manager at a Pico Rivera firm that sells large trucks and repair parts, told the LA Times. "It's a huge financial impact on our customers," he said, predicting some may take their parts purchases to lower-tax communities.