SOUTH-CENTRAL : 18 Conditions Set to Reopen Liquor Store

The City Council, continuing its hard-line stand on rebuilding liquor stores leveled in last year’s riots, has agreed to allow a South-Central store to reopen under 18 new and stringent regulations.

By a 12-0 vote, the council told the owners of ABEC Liquor, 3115 S. Western Ave., that they must abide by conditions that include shorter operating hours and hiring security guards during nighttime hours to prevent loitering and other public nuisances.

The council’s action followed a brief but stormy hearing during which the conditions were decried as unreasonable by the son of the store’s owners, Jean and Paul Park.

“I feel like I was robbed--twice. Once in 1992 by the riots, and now by the city,” Mike Park angrily told lawmakers. “I think this is nothing but a political ballgame, and the little mom-and-pop (store) owners are being sacrificed to keep the peace.”

During the hearing on ABEC, Mike Park made a direct dollars-and-cents plea for less stringent conditions.

While his family was willing to hire a security guard for the business, Park said, the family cannot afford the city’s requirement of having a guard on duty each day from 5 p.m. to 90 minutes after the store’s new closing time of 10 p.m. That requirement alone would cost the business $21,000 a year, he said.

Park added that forcing the store to close at 10 p.m. rather than 2 a.m. will cost the business another $40,000 a year in sales, and said his parents are still paying off some $50,000 in debts to restock their store after it was looted in the riots.

Citing testimony at earlier meetings by residents and the LAPD, Councilman Hal Bernson urged colleagues to support restrictions because of ABEC’s history as a trouble spot. “This particular location . . . has been the cause of a number of problems in the community,” he said.

Although the council must take into account how its decisions financially affect businesses, Bernson said, it cannot allow those considerations to override other factors.