OXNARD : Pool Hall Owner Gets OK to Sell Alcohol

After more than an hour of debate, the Oxnard City Council has voted to allow the owner of a downtown pool hall to serve alcohol, despite a Police Department report that found the area was over-saturated with alcohol sales.

Council members voted 3 to 2 this week to allow Sung Ho Park, the owner of the Hollywood Club on A Street, to sell beer.

Dean Maulhardt and Tom Holden voted against the liquor permit, saying Park stressed when he obtained the go-ahead to build the business in 1993 that it would be a family oriented establishment.

Mayor Manuel Lopez and council members Bedford Pinkard and Andres Herrera said their decision was difficult, because the city’s guidelines for allowing businesses to sell liquor are murky.

Although the police report said the A Street area was full of alcohol-selling establishments, it recommended that the permit be approved because the Hollywood Club was a well-run business with few incidents of crime.

To show his gratitude for the approval of his pool hall in 1993, Park, a Korean businessman, gave council members bronze replicas of the helmets worn 3,000 years ago at the original Olympic Games.

The council members later gave the helmets away after learning that an identical helmet once sold for $3,000 and should have been reported to the state Fair Political Practices Commission.