Health Store Wine Sale an Issue in Ferment

Stig Erlander, molecular biologist, nutritionist and the proprietor of a natural products store here, says he can’t help but think the local Town Council has misunderstood his intentions.

Erlander, whose 70 published works in science include articles on the therapeutic benefits of wine, figured an organic wine would be a perfect complement to his store’s products, alongside the homemade soap and olive oil and the popular roach killer he concocts from everyday kitchen spices.

So last month, Erlander applied to the state Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control for a license to sell two commercial brands of organic wine at the store he runs with his wife, Leatrice. He posted the requisite 30-day public notice on the front of the business at 2279 N. Lake Ave.

But in the weeks since, Erlander’s plans have met with stiff opposition in unincorporated Altadena, a cautious community whose leaders attribute high rates of crime and unemployment partly to a proliferation of “ghetto-type” liquor stores in impoverished areas of west Altadena. Some community leaders have even argued for a moratorium on the awarding of liquor licenses.

Although Erlander’s Natural Products is located in a main commercial area of east Altadena, the Town Council--an advisory body--voted 8 to 4 to oppose Erlander’s application in a letter to the Alcoholic Beverage Control. department. Sheriff’s officials here also said they will also file a report with the state agency asking that the application be denied.

“I think the Town Council has this vision of another liquor store popping up in town. But we’re not looking to be that,” Erlander said. “Our concept is to sell healthy items that are hard to find. I think organic wine fits perfectly into that definition.”

Erlander said the wine he wants to sell is made without the sulfur dioxide and other chemicals used to enhance clarity in regular wines. The organic wine, which has an alcohol content of 12%, sells for $4 to $5 a bottle.

Alcoholic Beverage Control officials said a final decision on the application must await further investigation and possibly a hearing, but Erlander believes the community’s opposition will force the agency to rule against him.

So the 58-year-old Erlander, an iconoclast who has been running headlong into scientific convention ever since his days as a government researcher, is preparing to wage battle again.

Armed with his articles detailing the medicinal value of wine, Erlander will argue his case before the Town Council at its next meeting on Feb. 18. He hopes to win the council’s approval, which would help him successfully appeal a possible adverse decision by the Alcoholic Beverage Control department.

Erlander said his first fight against “so-called conventional wisdom” was his model on how starch is synthesized in plants. He said his model differed from accepted theory by asserting that glycogen, a complex sugar, was present in all plants and converted to starch. Two years ago he presented his model to the 12th International Carbohydrate Symposium in Holland.

“It was ridiculed at first. Everyone said it was impossible because glycogen was present only in some plants. But after 30 years, some people have come to accept my theory.

“I hope it doesn’t take as many years to convince the Town Council that organic wine is a food that can be beneficial.”

Frank Bridal, president of the Town Council, acknowledged that community leaders may have acted a bit hastily in recommending that the application be denied.

“I have some question whether a health food store selling a health wine is really a detriment to the community,” said Bridal, who did not vote on the matter.

“We’ll give him a fair shake. If the council so chooses, they can rescind their opposition.”

Erlander’s Natural Products promotes itself as “Nature’s Department Store” on its blue and yellow awning, the colors of the flag of Sweden where Erlander’s parents were born.

Walking into Erlander’s, the first-time visitor might expect the store to cause more consternation to fire officials than to members of a Town Council concerned with too many liquor outlets. Small and narrow, the store has the appearance of a warehouse, with boxes stacked everywhere and racks of clothes bunched together.

Erlander’s is really a small department store for those who wish to swaddle themselves from head to toe in natural fabrics. The selection includes 100% cotton panties, wool ties and blankets, flannel sheets and cotton jogging suits.

“We don’t stock anything made of petroleum products,” Leatrice Erlander said. “When polyester clothes heat up, they give off harmful byproducts that are inhaled or absorbed through the skin,” she asserted.

Only a small section of the store is devoted to food and home products. The olive oil is processed without lye, unlike many store-bought brands. Erlander makes two types of his own soap, one containing olive oil and the other made with California Zinfandel wine.

But the most popular and peculiar item remains his homemade roach killer, made solely from edible, natural spices. The spices’ oils, harmless to humans, are toxic to roaches. Erlander said customers from as far away as Florida and Texas, where the roaches are large and particularly stubborn, buy the roach killer through his mail-order catalogue.

The Erlanders have a radio show on KIEV-AM and a cable television show dealing with diet and disease, depend a great deal on mail-order business. During a two-hour period one recent afternoon, only two customers walked into the store, one of whom requested help with her diet and then complained that she had no money.

“Business is not too good. We’re making a living, but that’s about it,” Stig Erlander said. With a laugh, he added, “I should have remained a chemist with the government. . . . I could have retired at $60,000 a year.”

Erlander grew up in Minneapolis and received his Ph.D in biochemistry from Iowa State University. He married Leatrice, a farm girl from North Dakota, in 1952 and took a job with the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1959 as a research scientist.

Seven years later, the Erlanders moved to Southern California with their three children after Erlander took a teaching post with the Worldwide Church of God’s Ambassador College in Pasadena. A church member, Erlander headed the school’s chemistry and biology department for seven years. He said he slowly became disillusioned with the church’s autocratic structure and its strict policy of tithing. He said he was fired after pointing out inconsistencies between church doctrine and the Bible to high church officials.

Church officials denied that Erlander was fired. They said he was laid off because of budget cutbacks and changes in curriculum that emphasized Bible studies.

“The place was run like Stalin’s Russia,” said Erlander, who is no longer a church member but still has high regard for the church. “Stalin was afraid of knowledge. If anyone appeared a threat, he simply killed them. At Ambassador College, they just fired you.”

Roy Whistler, distinguished professor of biochemistry at Purdue University, who worked with Erlander at the Department of Agriculture and has heard his presentations, said Erlander is a “good scientist, who doesn’t follow the normal course of things.”

“His lines of thinking are not in the normal channels, and because of that, he is considered slightly strange,” Whistler said. “But I don’t think scientists find him strange. I just think they think he follows a different drummer.”

In his small office in the rear of the store, Erlander surrounds himself with hundreds of books that speak of his passion, books about diet and health and how the proper foods can prevent the onslaught of degenerative diseases such as cancer and arthritis.

He has little use for doctors, trusting his own methods of self-healing instead. He said wine has long been an important part of that philosophy. He said he became convinced of the therapeutic benefits of wine more than 20 years ago when his daughter, then 6 years old, could not fight off an inner-ear infection despite several months of antibiotics.

“After a year, her doctor told us there was nothing more he could do and that she might go deaf. I looked into my science literature for a natural system to kill off infection and I found that wine, made right, had powerful antibiotics.”

Erlander bought dry red wine and applied it to his daughter’s ear. In one week, he said, the infection was gone.”

“I used red wine because the grape skins are left in,” he explained. “When grape skins ferment, the natural antibiotics are formed.”

Erlander, who makes his own organic wine but does not plan to sell it, said he avoids all other alcohol. He compared hard liquor to white sugar and said whiskey and vodka are killing thousands of Americans yearly.

The Erlanders say the medicinal benefits of wine will represent only part of their case before the Altadena Town Council. They said they will also argue that their store is specialized and serves a very specific customer, who generally does not live in Altadena. They said the Town Council based much of its earlier decision on the incorrect impression that the store was located directly across the street from Elliot Junior High School. It is a block away.

“We’re not talking about selling cheap port wine,” Leatrice Erlander said. “I don’t think what we’re proposing to do is going to contribute to crime and delinquency.”

Dale Rasmussen, a district administrator with the El Monte office of Alcoholic Beverage Control, said the burden is on his department and any protesters to show that issuing the liquor license would prove “contrary to public welfare and morals.”

“If it’s an alcoholic beverage, it’s subject to abuse and that’s why we need to conduct a thorough and complete investigation,” Rasmussen said.

Town Council President Bridal said he welcomed Erlander’s presentation. “I have nothing against wine. In fact, when I finish with this interview, I’m going to make myself a little dry martini with vodka.”

Said Erlander: “Tell him not to do that. He’s asking for it. It’s worse than white sugar. If he doesn’t watch out, he’s going to kill himself.”