Prominent San Gabriel Valley Dumpling Group Pleads Guilty to $2 Million Tax Fraud

One of the San Gabriel Valley’s most well-known dumpling restaurant groups has pled guilty to a wide-ranging and decade-long tax fraud scheme, resulting in a $2 million penalty, reports LAist. The Mama’s Lu Dumpling owners, brother and sister Yan and William Lu, settled the multi-million-dollar payout with the state last Friday, officials say, after first being investigated in 2018 for filing false tax returns and hiding income.

The pair have run a number of prominent San Gabriel Valley restaurants over the years under various business names, including the xiao long bao hotspot Mama Lu’s Dumpling House. They do not own the 501 W. Garvey Avenue location; that’s held by a separate and unattached owner named Anna Tang, who bought the business in 2015 and has not been charged with any tax fraud.

In other news:

• Ventura is one of the latest California counties to enact a mask mandate for all indoor activities, says the LA Times, as the coastal county sees a delta variant-related surge in hospitalizations.
• L.A. Taco discusses the important differences between gentrification and ‘gentefication’ via the new Blvd Market development on Whittier Boulevard in Montebello. The difference between the two is, to L.A. Taco, primarily a conversation about where development money comes from, and who within a community gets access to it.
• Check out the below walkthrough of Mamba Mart, the LA-based convenience store crafted in honor of the late Kobe Bryant, whose birthday was yesterday.

• Australian-styled coffee shop Bluestone Lane is adding yet another Los Angeles location, this time in the former Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf at 950 Westwood Boulevard, reports Toddrickallen.
• After a messy year with lots of anti-lockdown rhetoric and COVID rule-flouting, the Long Beach restaurant formerly known as Restauration is now up for sale on real estate site Redfin.
• Cult Santa Monica is hosting a block party and crawfish boil on August 28, which will include live music, lots of seafood, and $8 rum drinks.
• Sumo Dog, the popular event pop-up and former Koreatown restaurant known for Japanese-inspired hot dogs, is pushing steadily into stadium deals across the country — including at Inglewood’s new SoFi Stadium, where Sumo Dog will now have two locations.