How the California fires are remaking the L.A. economy
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. On a typical weekday, lunch hour is bustling at Toscana Brentwood, a popular restaurant with the Hollywood elite where it isn‘t uncommon to see Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger dining while agents table hop looking for the next big deal. Since the fires that have destroyed the Palisades and forced much of neighboring Brentwood and Santa Monica to evacuate, Toscana is a ghost town.
With no Aston Martins or Teslas to park, the valets are talking among themselves. “We have a lot of customers who have lost their houses," said Roberto “Roby" Facciolla, general manager and partner of Toscana during an unusually quiet lunch hour on Monday. “Everybody is in shock." Just a few miles away from Toscana, the hotels and motels in Santa Monica are packed with evacuees from the fire.
The lounge of the iconic Shutters on the Beach hotel where even the lowest-priced rooms can approach $700 a night is packed with families and the occasional dog. Rents are soaring as displaced residents scramble to find longer-term housing. The project of rebuilding Pacific Palisades, Altadena, and other parts of greater Los Angeles will likely cost billions and take years.
Like past disasters, the wildfires will create economic winners as well as losers. The loss column is already painful and wide: Scores of businesses have been destroyed or closed, some for good. People who have been displaced by the fires are struggling to get to work—if their work is still there.
For businesses that managed to survive the blazes, the displacement of tens of thousands of people across Los Angeles County has meant the sudden evaporation of their customer base. A sign of support on the window of Capsule Shop in Brentwood, Calif. The
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