SANTA MONICA, Calif. – Hania Yazdi owns a sandwich shop a block from the Santa Monica pier. As a small business owner, she says her franchise name is the only big thing about her 900-square-foot store. 

“It’s crazy doing business out here in Santa Monica, it’s the wild wild west,” said Yazdi.“This is a very small space, I need to produce very high numbers in order for me to be able to afford to have a small business here."

But what threatens her business the most, is what she describes as a general sense of lawlessness around Santa Monica.

“The daily issue is just having lots of people that are living on the street inside the store, around the store approaching our customers, stealing form the store, that’s on the daily,” said Yazdi.

She has stories of people harassing and attacking customers and employees and videos of people stealing and fighting. A recent brawl cost her thousands of dollars. In one video, you can see a person jumping behind the counter, according to Yazdi, to grab a knife.

"This is crazy, what am I supposed to do? Does Someone have to come out here and die for someone to do something about it? I don't know," said Yazdi.

The chaos and harrassment doesn't just drive customers away she says, her employees have at times been injured and that puts the future of her business in jeopardy.

 “These workmen comp cases wipe out maybe half of my income. If I was going to make $100,000 maybe I make $50,000. One or two of that (workmen comp cases) is the difference between me making a profit at the end of the year or working and not making a profit at all,” said Yazdi.

But even as she struggles, she can’t help but feel compassion.

“When the kid comes in and reaches around and steals a couple of cookies and runs out and I see how skinny he is, what am I gonna tell him, don’t take the cookies?” she said.

She has written and spoken with city leaders about the issue, and they have been responsive to her problems. We reached out to the City of Santa Monica for comment on this story but did not hear back. And although Yazdi has met with the city, she says not a lot has changed.

“I don’t think that it’s my job to be the one speaking out, this is totally outside of my element but no one is doing something about a very serious problem,” she said.

A very serious problem that's unfortunately familiar to many small business owners in Santa Monica.