A local business owner has stated he will run for the Georgia General Assembly this election year.
Long Tran, the owner of Peachy Corners Cafe in Peachtree Corners, said he will run for House District 80 this November.
Tran, who once introduced President Joe Biden at a Gwinnett rally in 2021, has never run for public office and previously said that he had no interest in running for office. However, he said the recent redistricting efforts of the Georgia General Assembly changed that.
“After redistricting, the lines for what was House District 79 will now become House District 80,” he said. “It encompasses a far larger part of Doraville and Chamblee, which brings in a lot more diversity to the district.”
Tran, who is the son of South Vietnamese immigrants, said he wanted to give the diverse residents of the district a representative who could reflect their interests, and his neighbors in the Dunwoody area have been encouraging him to run. The current representative for House District 80 is Rep. Mike Wilensky.
“They believe that I could make a huge impact in the community with my business experience and working with community organizations,” he said. “I can best reflect the different demographics within the new district.”
Tran named education and immigration as two issues he would like to focus on.
“Education is a very important issue,” he said. “There’s overcrowding … not just within the Dunwoody schools, but you see it in the Chamblee and Doraville clusters as well. So that’s a big concern, because at some point the overcrowding is going to affect kids’ education.”
Tran also said for some of the new more diverse areas of the district, he thought immigration would start to become a major concern.
“As we get over to Doraville, Chamblee, immigration is a concern,” he said. “Undocumented immigrants … they feel a lot of the needs that they need for their children and their future as a community isn’t getting addressed at the State House.”
As of Feb. 1, Tran has registered his Declaration of Intent to run for House District 80.
Correction: Peachy Corners Cafe is located in Peachtree Corners, located close to the border of Dunwoody.