Irked Grocer Jumps Gun to Open Lottery a Week Early

The California Lottery’s plans for a glitzy, daylong kickoff celebration Oct. 3, featuring everything from Chinese lion dancers to Steve Allen, were upstaged by a renegade San Francisco grocer Wednesday, who defied game regulations and sold more than 1,500 instant scratch-off tickets before state officials revoked his license.

“I broke the rules. . . . I love it. . . . I feel 30 years younger,” said crusty market owner Steve Stephan, 50, operator of Smitty’s Market in the southern part of the city.

In a telephone interview, Stephan branded the largest lottery in the nation “a rip-off,” after the first 500 of the $1 tickets he sold produced only $86 in $2 and $5 prizes and the second 500 only $79.

To make matters worse, Stephan said, he and his wife bought $64 worth of the new lottery chances and “we didn’t win a penny.”

Took Button

“They took the license, and I’m glad it’s over. I don’t want nothing to do with the lottery any more,” Stephan snapped after two lottery officials and a security officer scooped up his unsold tickets about 2 p.m. Wednesday, snapped the big orange “L” lottery signs off his store windows and even confiscated his lottery salesman’s button.

The lottery revolt on Old Bayshore Road near South San Francisco lasted about 29 hours and left lottery officials irked.

“I’m concerned that someone didn’t follow the rules, which we made very clear to all of the retailers,” lottery director Mark Michalko said. “We at the lottery had some concerns that some might try to sell out of schedule, but we made it clear that there would have to be some penalties.

“But one out of 20,000 (retailers) isn’t too bad,” Michalko shrugged.

He said lottery attorneys were investigating whether Stephan had broken any state laws.

Because of the gun-jumping, an expensive, four-city opening-day extravaganza, replete with marching bands, jugglers, mimes, unicyclists, fireworks and a laser show now will have to celebrate the second day of ticket sales in the state, “at least at that location,” Michalko lamented.

And no longer will the Oct. 3 hoopla produce the first California lottery winner.

That distinction goes to a 37-year-old sausage salesman from Novato, John Coleman, who scratched off a $5 winning ticket, shortly after Stephan broke the lottery embargo about 9 a.m. Tuesday.

“Do you think it’ll get me on Johnny Carson?” asked an ebullient Coleman. He eventually bought $57 worth of tickets and wound up $10 in the red, after adding up all his wins and loses.

Phone Conversation

Coleman said he had planned to play the lottery on Oct. 3 and was startled by what Stephan had to say in an early morning telephone conversation on Tuesday.

“He said, ‘Come on over, I’ve got lottery tickets,’ ” Coleman recalled.

“I said, ‘I know, I’m going to play Oct. 3.’ ”

“ ‘No,’ he said, ‘you don’t understand. I’m selling them today.’ ”

When they closed up Stephan on Wednesday, Coleman--reached at the Home Sausage Co. in San Francisco--said he had $400 in his pocket to play for friends “who decided I was lucky.”

The market owner said he decided to flout lottery rules because he was disgusted.

He said lottery officials told him he had to come up with $4,140 in seven days to pay for his first batch of 6,000 tickets, which arrived at the store on Tuesday. “I said to hell with that. . . . I don’t have that kind of money.”

Concern Voiced

Besides, after the initial flurry of ticket sales, Stephan decided “it’s just too much work for the 5% commission (lottery retailers earn a nickel on each $1 ticket sold), and I was worried about the risk of being held up with all those tickets around.”

In addition, Stephan complained, the ticket sales had not brought any new business into his small grocery.

“Most of the people who came in, I already know,” he said.