His furniture shop was looted, the community helped him, he is now a successful businessman | Univision News United States

Johannes Sanchez He was stunned to see images recorded on surveillance cameras at his furniture store in New York. It reopened in June 2020 and after a three-month shutdown due to the epidemic. Videos were recorded Plundering your business This happened during the protests against police brutality and racism. When he went to the store, he saw some people carrying some leftovers, but he decided not to interfere for their safety.

“They took everything. They looted for twelve hours. There were trucks outside to take all the goods from the store. I looked at the cameras. I felt very helpless,” owner Sanchez recalled. Beverly Hills Furniture, In an interview with Univision Notices. “Lost about $ 400,000,” he calculates.

He hoped the insurer would take responsibility, but they did not. It is stated as a clause on page 71 of the agreement The carnage did not cover the damage And according to his account they did not classify it as theft.

When reporters approached businesses affected by the riots in the Bronx, Sanchez came up with an idea: Give him an interview to ask the community to help him get out of the pit by buying furniture. He spoke to various New York media outlets, including the show The first impact And the local university station in that city.

“Meeting this, after an epidemic, should start from less than zero,” his wife, Gisele Sanchez, told Unilever reporter Nailee Chavez-Keller. Everything is ruined. ”

The couple shared their sad story and the response from the people came immediately. “Thank God, with the support of customers, I started selling in places I never thought possible: Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Georgia, Virginia … it was a great blessing from God, I was able to get out of the hole. There was,” Johannes Sanchez, a Dominican immigrant, told the media.

Before his tragedy went viral, Beverly Hills Furniture He sold it only to residents of the Bronx.

He sent several pieces of furniture across the country and was able to recover the $ 400,000 stolen from him in three months. Within a year it opened three new stores. He will take office in a few more days Its fifth branch In the Bronx. Having practically gone bankrupt, his businesses now employ more than 20 people, he told Univision that they have billed $ 1 million over the past 12 months.

This is the second time Johansser Sanchez has been beaten. In 2005, when he was 21, he opened his first furniture store in New York on a budget of $ 25,000 and his family lent him money. The customers came little by little, and he did well. It has six branches Beverly Hills Furniture, Sales have been low since 2016, until he loses them.

He had two shops left, and above all, One of which caught fire January 1, 2018 Dawn. “We were in all the news. What happened? That I had no insurance at that store. In that case, the goods were valued at about $ 250,000. “I had to sell everything I had – clothes, watches – to pay off the debt I had with the furniture companies,” he recalled.

He never wakes up from that situation, anytime Plague and robbery engulfed him again.

His mother, Areli Armanchar, tells him how to comfort his son while collecting the rubble. “I told him it was okay to lose anything, because the Lord was going to multiply it, and we saw it. God is behind all this, ”he told Univision Notice.

“We saw families with their children looting business goods as if they were their own,” he recalled with sadness.

Armanzar, who works in furniture stores, describes his son as a man who wants to help others. “For example, a house caught fire and he gave up the house without any interest,” he says.

Now that his business is going from strength to strength, Sanchez reflects how a bad experience defined his business success. “What I did was bring out the positive from the negative, and with God’s help, I was able to deal with what happened in my store,” he says.

“You can never give up, you should always do what you can. Circumstances never allow you to drown or bury yourself,” he advises.