Liquor Sales May Be Limited in Area Where Crime Congregates : Pacoima: The City Council urges a planning official to impose restraints on operations at three stores where numerous arrests have been made.

Los Angeles City Councilman Ernani Bernardi’s campaign to clean up three Pacoima liquor stores that have been the scene of criminal activity got a boost Thursday from a city planning official.

Jon Perica, associate zoning administrator, said that during an upcoming City Hall hearing “we could easily be talking in terms of revoking” the conditional-use permit of the Pacoima Food Market, at 13132 Van Nuys Blvd., to sell liquor for off-site consumption. Perica will preside over that hearing.

Although his decisions are subject to appeal, Perica said he has the support of the full City Council.

The owner of the Pacoima Food Market, Farah Ammari, said Bernardi was trying “to make me a scapegoat. They sell cocaine in front of the White House. It’s a national problem. Why are they bothering me?”

Ammari, who has operated the store for 20 years with his family, also said he has spent $200,000 to provide additional security at his store. “Bernardi came out and shook my hand for this,” he said.

Perica said that in separate hearings he also will consider imposing restrictions on the operation of John’s Liquor, at 13101 Van Nuys Blvd., and Leon’s Liquor, at 10971 Glenoaks Blvd.

The city’s efforts to clean up the three stores has not always been successful. Last May, a Superior Court judge declared that more than half of the restrictions Perica had imposed on the operations of the three stores were unlawful.

The outlawed restrictions included banning the sale of refrigerated beer and wine, the sale of beer in quantities of less than a six-pack or wine in bottles smaller than 750 milliliters. All the restrictions were imposed to discourage drinking around the store that authorities said led to lawless behavior and loitering.

On Wednesday, the City Council agreed not to appeal the judge’s ruling. “I didn’t like it, but I went along with it,” Bernardi said Thursday.

As an alternative, the council adopted a motion Wednesday introduced by Bernardi urging Perica to follow the recommendations of the Los Angeles Police Department and impose new restraints on operations at the three stores, including revoking the city permit for the Pacoima Food Market to sell liquor. Thirty percent of the store’s business is liquor sales, owner Ammari said Thursday.

“From the police standpoint, the owner of the Pacoima Food Market is not credible,” Perica said. The department said recently that 11 arrests for drinking in public were made outside the Pacoima Food Market; that another arrest was made for selling cocaine on the sidewalk outside the store; and that the management has been cited twice for selling alcohol to minors.

Due to these continuing problems, the Pacoima Food Market’s conditional-use permit to sell liquor for off-site consumption should be revoked, the department said in a July 12 letter to Perica.

The letter also said Leon’s and John’s were the sites of one arrest each for sale of liquor to minors; that a customer had offered cocaine to an undercover officer at Leon’s; and that the owner of John’s had allowed “suspects to place bookmaking evidence in his locked Dumpster.”