Downtown SLO boutique targeted after ICE raided LA store with the same name
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Ambiance Boutique in SLO wrongly targeted after ICE raid at Ambiance Apparel.
- Owners received threats, harassment and negative reviews despite clarifying link.
- Boutique urges public to verify information and turn outrage into constructive action.
When Mirjam Holt, the manager of Ambiance Boutique in downtown San Luis Obispo, starting getting threatening phone calls to the store on Saturday, she had no idea why.
“We were getting phone call after phone call where people would say ... ‘die b---h’ and ‘I hope your business burns down,’” she told The Tribune.
Hours later, she figured it out. A Los Angeles business by the same name had been the target of a federal immigration enforcement raid the day before, during which undocumented employees were detained by federal agents inside its warehouse, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The business was Ambiance Apparel.
“We are not the same store,” Ambiance Boutique co-owner Colby Courter told The Tribune. “We are not Ambiance Apparel, we have never been affiliated with Ambiance Apparel. The only thing we share is a name.”
Once Holt realized that the small business was being conflated with the Los Angeles store that was raided, the angered calls made more sense. But even after the store clarified the misunderstanding, the hate kept coming.
People screamed expletives and thinly veiled threats over the phone, saying the store would “get what was coming for” it. Some callers wouldn’t let Holt get a word in edgewise before they hung up in anger. Others listened, but didn’t care.
“Most people didn’t listen,” Holt said. “Most people would say, ‘F--k you,’ and then they would hang up.”
Now, when you look up Ambiance Boutique on Google, the search result reads “Ambiance Luxury Boutique - NOT AFFILIATED WITH AMBIANCE APPAREL,” but it has continued to receive hateful messages and a negative Google review. The store changed its voicemail recording to clarify the mistake and stopped answering calls on Sunday.
They just can’t take the senseless hate, co-owner Kannyn January-Courter told The Tribune.
“As a society, we have to find more humanitarian ways to navigate these difficult times, difficult situations, and come together for good or to support,” January-Courter said. “Like, through all this hate, there’s not been one message on how we can make a difference.”
LA business by same name of SLO store was raided by ICE
Chaos erupted in Los Angeles over the weekend when federal immigration agents descended on the city and carried out immigration enforcement operations in multiple locations, including two Ambiance Apparel office locations in and around the city’s Fashion District.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in riot gear detained more than 40 Ambiance Apparel employees inside its buildings, used flash-bang grenades and pepper spray on a crowd of protesters and drove off with vans full of immigrant workers.
Following the raid, the internet exploded with angry comments at Ambiance Apparel — a company with a history of run-ins with federal law enforcement — but it is not clear from news reports that the business cooperated with ICE or turned over its own employees.
In fact, the company’s owner, Sang Bum “Ed” Noh, was known for kindness toward his employees, including lending money to one worker to help pay for his child’s college tuition and giving generous — though sometimes under-the-table — bonuses to others, the Los Angeles Times reported. Noh was convicted of conspiracy and tax fraud in 2021 but still appears to own the company.
A different Ambiance, however, bore the brunt of online misinformation.
“Who owns the company that allegedly locked up 45 undocumented workers in Downtown L.A., withheld their pay, and turned them over to FBI for deportation?” one post on Instagram Threads said, incorrectly identifying January-Courter as the current CEO of Ambiance Apparel in Los Angeles.
Ambiance Boutiques have been around since the 1970s, but the current owners and married pair bought the location in San Luis Obispo over 20 years ago and opened another in Paso Robles in 2012. The business has no Los Angeles location.
January-Courter described the messages her business and employees received over the weekend as “hurtful,” “scary” and “threatening,” brandishing warnings like “You know what’s coming for you,” “You’re gonna get destroyed” and “We know you’re in San Luis Obispo.”
The boutique owners shared a few of the voicemails they received with The Tribune.
In one, someone who appeared to be calling from Los Angeles called them “f--k a-- people.”
“F--k San Luis Obispo, I don’t give a s--t if it’s that far away from L.A. F--k you guys,” the caller said.
“Your business is gonna crash,” another caller said, adding other expletives.
The store got similarly aggressive emails calling them “pieces of s--t” and a “disgrace” along with wishing for the store to be robbed.
Coincidentally, the store had been the victim of a theft the day prior and they had posted security footage to their Instagram in an attempt to catch the thief, January-Courter said. Before they learned of the Los Angeles ICE raids, they thought that might’ve been the source of the hate.
Someone commented on the Instagram post of the female thief: “Good for her.”
January-Courter couldn’t believe what she was seeing and hearing. Her employees began to fear picking up the phone and going online on the store’s Instagram.
As a business owner, she felt responsible for her employees’ safety.
“Even if you found the right company and got a hold of them, you’re being mean to the employees,” she said. “You’re hurting the people that are getting hurt — like, it’s not even logical. It’s hate for hate’s sake.”
Ambiance Boutique received misguided hatred, store says
As Holt fielded the calls, she said people were “rightfully” angry at how the ICE raids happened, but were also “so swept up in mass hysteria that they don’t Google or look. They don’t research.”
“For a small business, this can be really devastating,” she said.
For the owners of Ambiance Boutique, their business couldn’t be further removed from what happened in Los Angeles over the weekend.
“These ICE raids are heartbreaking,” Courter said. “From what we know, it’s just a terrible, terrible thing that’s happening. We don’t support or endorse any of it.”
But the store’s owners and employees also don’t see hatred as the answer.
January-Courter wishes the anger and energy being put toward harassing her store and employees would instead be metabolized into actionable change.
“Seeing what’s happening to families is horrible,” she said. “I wouldn’t want anybody to be put through that, and the anger is understandable, but finding a way to take that anger and use it for good is going to help us all. That’s where positive change can come from.”
Being on the receiving end of it all, Holt agreed.
“It’s definitely not a hateful approach, that’s for sure,” she said. “It’s that’s just not the right way of doing it.”
This story was originally published June 11, 2025 at 9:36 AM.
CORRECTION: This story has been updated to reflect that the owners of Ambiance Boutique bought the San Luis Obispo location over 20 years ago and opened another in Paso Robles in 2012.
