Anaheim : Market Denied Alcohol License Despite Protest

About 40 Anaheim residents went home disappointed Tuesday after the City Council voted unanimously against granting a temporary beer and wine license to a neighborhood convenience store.

Shirin A. Damani, owner of Prince Supermarket at 1200 W. Cerritos Ave., charged that City Council members were discriminating against him because he is from Pakistan. Without a license to sell beer and wine, Damani claimed, his family-run store will go out of business.

Council member Irv Pickler said the residential area was no place for a convenience market, with or without alcohol. Howie Schulman, the only area resident to speak against alcohol sales at the store, said, “There’s a lot of junkies hanging out there” and alcohol would create more problems.

But other neighbors attending the public hearing painted a different picture.

“I think the place is beautiful for the city of Anaheim, for the corner,” next-door neighbor Al Kotek told City Council members. Kotek’s signature was one of more than 550 signatures on a petition supporting Damani’s request.

Tuesday was Damani’s third try before a local board. Following the council’s 5-0 decision, Damani said that he and his attorneys plan further appeal. Alcohol sales would boost his income by 50%, he said.

“There isn’t a convenience market that I’ve been able to locate in the city of Anaheim that doesn’t sell beer and wine,” Damani’s lawyer, Frank Lowry, told council members. “It (Prince Supermarket) cannot compete as it is now and it will fail.”