Hair salon owner hopes to stay afloat after losing nearly $100k in damages from looting

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    CHICAGO (WGN) — A small business owner is hoping to stay afloat after nearly $100,000 worth of merchandise was looted from her store last Monday.

China McNeal was heartbroken when her got to her hair salon Monday after it was cleaned out by looters.

Chi Hair Imports, located at Dearborn and Huron, lost around $98,000 between damage and stolen merchandise, McNeal estimated.

“When I got here I realized everything had been vandalized, the windows had been broken out and everything had been stolen,” McNeal said. “This didn’t seem like a protest or the Black Lives Matter movement, this was an opportunity for those people who are thieves to come in and loot and steal.”

After 20 years in business, McNeal is concerned for herself and other small business owners in the city.

“For us, we tried to call the police, we could not get the police on the phone. We called three, four times and a lot of my neighbors were saying the same thing,” she said. “The police were not able to take a police report, we were able to have someone come in on Saturday.”

McNeal is worried she won’t be able to protect her business if looting happens again.

“That’s a long time to not have a police to respond. That concerns me because if that’s the direction the city is going,” she said. “We’re in trouble.”

McNeal has received donations and she’s hopeful she can rebuild.

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