Westminster Mall

Sen Nguyen lived a mother's nightmare. Her 13-year-old daughter, Phuong Nguyen, was near death this week after two bullets allegedly fired by a reputed gang member at the Westminster Mall struck her in the back. "Doctors kept telling me at first there might not be any hope for her, and I was afraid every time the phone rang," Nguyen said Friday. "But I came in to see her (Thursday afternoon), and she opened her eyes to look at me. That's when I knew she will live."

Margie Rice lived in Westminster before it had a grocery store. Or a Vietnamese heritage. If both historical notes now seem hard to imagine, it just goes to show what has happened to the once sleepy white-bread community of 92,000. Westminster/Little Saigon? You talk about a twain that you'd never think would meet. But they did meet and, as a Times story noted Sunday, the city soon will be the first in the country to sport a Vietnamese American majority on its council.

Westminster Mall, in a news release dated Monday, quotes economists as predicting a "prosperous Christmas for Orange County retailers." According to Westminster Mall, an economist with KeyCorp, an Albany, N.Y.-based banking company, predicts that Orange County consumers will spend between 7% and 10% more than they did during last year's holiday season. What will that buy?

About 500 people were evacuated Saturday from Westminster Mall after an employee who was unloading items from a delivery truck accidentally ruptured a gas line, Westminster police said. No one was injured. Authorities also cordoned off a parking lot, leaving about 60 people unable to get to their vehicles, police said. Gas first spewed in the loading dock of Sears Roebuck about 11:10 a.m., police said. The mall was reopened shortly before 1 p.m.

Shouting, fighting and finally a trail of blood surrounded by yellow police tape disrupted holiday shoppers at the Westminster Mall on Monday afternoon as a teen-age boy was stabbed during a gang confrontation. Police arrested half a dozen juveniles. One was later booked on suspicion of attempted murder, and the others were released to their parents, said Sgt. Don Kerr of the Westminster Police Department. Their names were not released because of their ages.

An employee of a jewelry store in the Westminster Mall was shot during a daring robbery attempt shortly before closing time Friday night, police said. Four suspects were arrested. The wounded employee was taken to Long Beach Memorial Medical Center for treatment, Westminster Police Lt. Bob Burnett said. The man's identity and his condition was not immediately available. The shooting occurred about 8:47 p.m.

A $10-million renovation and expansion of the 15-year-old Westminster Mall, unveiled in November, has added a new food court and an all-glass Jewel Court housing 11 new shops. The new center court features a glass elevator, fountain and splash pool, and palm trees. Among the new tenants are Imaginarium, Charlotte Russe and Hudson Goodman Jewelers. The mall's anchor stores are Sears, Robinson's, May Co. and Buffums.

Westminster Mall, the county's second-highest-grossing retail center in 1986 by a mere $10 million in sales, will try to fight off competition with a soon-to-be-announced multimillion-dollar face lift. The two-year renovation will take place in several phases, beginning with the ground breaking next month for a new food court. The mall's existing fast-food area will be gutted and will probably be replaced by retail and specialty shops.

The fierce battle for shoppers' dollars continues this week with the "grand re-opening" of Westminster Mall, which has just about finished a more than $10-million renovation. After a two-year face lift, Orange County's third-highest-grossing mall is planning three days of promotional shows and displays to show off its new look beginning Friday evening. "The center is 15 years old, so it definitely needed an upgrade," mall spokeswoman Jane Reid said.

The renovation of Westminster Mall will begin with a bow to the yuppie culture: an upscale food court. The mall's owners, Corporate Property Investors, formally announced that construction is scheduled to begin late this month on a 20,000-square-foot food court on the upper level near Sears.

Wedged between an art store and a clothing boutique advertising racy Brazilian fashions, the voting machines looked a little out of place. "It's been slow; mostly people who were curious," said Diana Wintrode, an elections inspector with the Orange County Registrar of Voters office. Last week, the agency installed polling places at six shopping malls, including the Irvine Spectrum, where Wintrode and another election worker, Ken Jumper, were working Saturday inside a vacant store.

A tailor's assistant faces up to a year in jail after he reached into the dress of a woman having her bridal gown adjusted and fondled her breasts, according to the Orange County district attorney's office. Fong Tran Dinh, 34, of Westminster was convicted Thursday of misdemeanor sexual battery following an incident in March 2002 at his father's Westminster Mall tailor shop, Tommie's Tailoring. Dinh, who is scheduled to be sentenced Feb.

Edwards Theatres Circuit Inc., continuing to shed small theater complexes that have been a drain on the Newport Beach chain, has closed its four-screen cinema in Westminster Mall. The theater, which often showed children's movies, had been overshadowed by a newer 10-screen cinema that Edwards opened in 1992 a couple of miles away. The Westminster movie house, which opened in 1974 with the mall, was closed last weekend when a water pipe broke in a food court above it.

The big drop in crime across Orange County has extended to local shopping malls, where officials report a sharp decline in shoplifting and theft so far this Christmas. At South Coast Plaza, crime is running about half the normal level for the holidays, with the Westminster Mall and MainPlace/Santa Ana reporting similar findings, police said. "Normally, crime surges around this time," said Costa Mesa Police Sgt. Dave Hamel, who monitors crime at South Coast Plaza.

Santa Claus will greet children during a show tonight at Westminster Mall. The show will feature live entertainment, singing, audience participation and photos with Santa. The event will get underway at 6:30 p.m. at the Holiday Stage Center Court at the mall, 1025 Westminster Mall.

Demolition and renovation are in full swing at Westminster Mall. Since summer, the mall has been pulling out ceilings, removing asbestos and "getting everything ready for the demolition," spokeswoman Jane Reid said. And last month, crews began tearing out the center court. Details released this week about Westminster's face lift include plans to build a glass, two-story, triangular structure in the center court.

Westminster Mall's renovation project is in full swing, with the owners announcing that Charlotte Russe, the women's apparel retailer, will be the anchor tenant in the new center court. The 11,000-square-foot Charlotte Russe store will be the chain's 14th outlet. It will be in a glass, two-story triangular center court, which will also include a fountain pool and an elevator in a glass column. Construction of the Charlotte Russe store, which will be the chain's flagship, is scheduled to begin Aug. 15. Plans call for the store to be finished by Christmas.