A line of loyal patrons once waited for seats at the New Empress Restaurant, where waitresses wove dim-sum carts between noisy tables filled with hundreds of customers.
Not anymore.
These days, the restaurant is a quiet place with just a few dozen customers eating in its vast 1,000-seat dining area. Although there have been no confirmed cases of SARS in Hawaii, fears of the contagious virus have taken a toll on the New Empress and many other businesses in Chinatown.
"This is the worst I've seen it," New Empress manager Eva Lau said. "This is worse than after 9/11."
Lau estimated business has dropped 75 percent and has been hurt further by the US-led war with Iraq and tax season.
The New Empress, the largest restaurant in Chinatown, hasn't laid off any of employees but has requested about one-quarter of its staff to go on vacation, Lau said.
The drop in pedestrian traffic is apparent throughout Chinatown, normally bustling with tourists, locals and downtown workers.
"When I walk around Chinatown, business is slow in general. It's not just the restaurants, but the retailers too," said Wen Lin, executive vice president of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce. "There's less people."
Rumors, misconceptions and hysteria about severe acute respiratory syndrome -- which is thought to have developed last year in China -- are keeping both tourists and locals away.
Business owners say the unfounded rumors have been rampant about restaurant staff dying of SARS, customers contracting the illness and businesses being shut down by the state. Now, the businesses are doing its best to survive and convince people that Chinatown is SARS-free.
"There's not even one case of SARS in Chinatown," Lau said.
Dr. James Marzolk, a program manager for epidemiology with the Department of Health's disease control branch, said the rumors are "completely unsubstantiated," and tries to prove it.
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