Market’s Liquor License Revoked : Pacoima: The store is permanently prohibited by the state from selling alcohol after years of violations.

A Pacoima market police called the “No. 1 problem” among liquor outlets in the northeast San Fernando Valley had its license to sell alcoholic beverages permanently revoked Thursday by the state Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control.

But neighbors said the Pacoima Food Market, which had been cited over the past seven years for repeated violations, such as selling alcohol to minors, has been closed for most of the summer.

“They’ve only been open about two weeks this whole summer,” said Carlos Perez, 23, who lives in an apartment upstairs from the shuttered store at the corner of Van Nuys Boulevard and Pala Avenue.

No one answered the telephone at the market, which is owned by Farah Ammari.

The Los Angeles Board of Zoning Appeals had voted to revoke Ammari’s city permit to sell liquor at his store in 1990. The board later unanimously voted down an appeal by Ammari on Jan. 12, 1991. A week earlier, Ammari had been cited again for selling beer to an underage--and undercover--police employee.

City officials said at those hearings that Ammari had repeatedly ignored pleas by police and community leaders to keep his market from being a public nuisance. Neighbors complained the market generated a host of problems, such as public drunkenness, street fights, illegal drug sales and prostitution.

Although officials often called the store the most troublesome liquor outlet for 60 square miles, enforcement of the city decision proved difficult, and the store continued to sell alcoholic beverages. City zoning officials said in December, 1991, that budget cuts had created a backlog of enforcement cases.

The city in 1989 had prohibited Ammari from selling alcohol after midnight on weekends and 10 p.m. week nights. He was also restricted from selling single cans of beer or small bottles of liquor.

Ammari at the time called the restrictions “a death sentence to my business.”

The state ABC had suspended Ammari’s license six times between 1985 and 1991 for violations, five times for selling alcohol to minors and once for selling to an obviously intoxicated person, state officials said.

Thursday’s action by state authorities makes it illegal for Ammari to ever sell alcohol again at his store.

“This liquor license is finished as of today,” said Walter Jarman, supervisor of investigations for the ABC’s Van Nuys office. Selling alcohol at the market would be a misdemeanor crime, punishable by a fine, a jail sentence or both, he said.

In most cases, store owners who have had their liquor licenses revoked are given a chance to sell or transfer them, Jarman said. They are generally worth between $10,000 and $15,000, he said.

But ABC officials declined to give Ammari that chance because of the number of past violations, officials said.