Special Report: Moving to the Valley : CANOGA PARK : Family Waits for Dream to Take Flight

Business brought Sunny Bhalla to the San Fernando Valley. But since he’s been here, that business hasn’t been booming.

Bhalla, his wife and their three children left West Los Angeles six months ago, moving to an apartment above the Canoga Park restaurant they’d bought.

But so far, their dream of success is still just a dream.

“I thought business would have been better,” Bhalla said, sitting at one of dozens of empty tables inside his peach-and-white restaurant.

The Bhallas came to California from Bombay six years ago, leaving the family welding equipment business. He found work managing a shoe store and his wife, Tanvi, worked in restaurants in trendy, expensive West Los Angeles.

But owning a business on the Westside didn’t seem even remotely possible. And a house was out of the question.

“Property values over there are fantastic,” Sunny Bhalla said. “We can’t even think about it.”

When the opportunity came to buy the Bombay Gate restaurant on Saticoy Street, the Bhallas jumped.

“It was our dream,” Sunny Bhalla said.

So the family moved in above the restaurant during the sweltering San Fernando Valley summer. That was the first shock.

“Weather is good in winter in the Valley. Not in summer,” said Tanvi Bhalla. “I missed West L.A. in summer. We didn’t ever use our fan in West L.A. in summertime.”

A few months later came another shock, as the family learned of a serial molester attacking Valley children.

“We were kind of scared,” Sunny Bhalla said. “Even if (the children) are two minutes or five minutes late we would worry.”

Roshni Bhalla, a seventh-grader at Sutter Middle School in Canoga Park leaned against a refrigerator in her family’s restaurant.

“In my old school there are a lot of different people from a lot of different countries,” she said. “Over here, there are not a lot of people from different countries.”

Though he moved to the Valley for business, Sunny Bhalla believes his family can be happy here.

“I think here in the Valley, more people are family oriented,” he said. “In West L.A. you never see that. My family will be more safe here, more free here.”