Fairfax High Fired Up Over Unwelcome New Neighbor

Fairfax High School students and their parents fumed when they spied the new store that opened for business Friday in front of their campus.

Across Melrose Avenue from the school’s main entrance was a 1960s-style head shop stocked with water pipes, drug-themed T-shirts and cigarettes.

“This is disgusting. They’re marketing to teens. We already have a drug problem,” said Kehiante McKinley, a 17-year-old senior who stared in disbelief at the bright red “Smoke Shop” sign over the storefront.

“Isn’t there a law that says something like that can’t be within a certain distance from a school?”

There isn’t, discovered school officials and parents who tried without success to snuff out the shop before Friday’s grand opening.

For two weeks they had watched with dismay as workers stocked the shop’s glass display cabinets and clothing racks and decorated its walls with such decals as: “Did Someone Say Marijuana?”

“We wanted to nip it in the bud, so to speak,” said Heather Evans, parental liaison at the 2,600-pupil high school. “But nobody could do anything.”

Municipal officials said the operator of the new shop has the proper business and tax permits.

The city attorney’s office was investigating Friday whether the store also had a tobacco retail permit--required through the city’s 2-year-old Tobacco Enforcement Program. The permit is part of a registration system for retailers who sell tobacco products, and helps officials enforce a law that requires cigarettes to be displayed on racks and shelves that are not accessible to the public.

Cartons of cigarettes in the Smoke Shop were stored behind a counter at the rear of the small shop. Proprietor Tigran Nersesyan was unapologetic about his merchandise.

“We can’t sell to people under 18. We have signs up,” he said. “If you see the sign, you won’t come in.”

But Nersesyan bristled when asked about the water pipes--many of which were ornate and priced as high as $99.

“This is not drug paraphernalia. These are tobacco pipes,” he said. He terminated the conversation when questioned about the marijuana references on wall decorations and on clothing displayed in the shop.

“I’m finished,” he said.

A short time later, Evans delivered copies of petitions signed by 220 parents and Fairfax High teachers protesting the sale of drug paraphernalia and apparel. Nersesyan directed her to the shop’s back room for a private meeting.

“I told him he’s preying on our kids,” Evans said later. “He said he never knew there was a school across the street. I said he should move to a different location. He said he’s not moving unless we pay him to move. I told him we don’t even have money for books.”

Evans said parents plan to picket Nersesyan’s shop.

“Parents are upset and rightfully so. I’m a child of the ‘60s myself, but it’s not appropriate to have a head shop across the street from a school,” said Fairfax High Principal Heather Daims as she surveyed her new neighbor Friday from the campus.

City officials said they will be watching the new shop too.

No local law regulates such businesses near schools, although some cities have zoning ordinances that restrict their location, said Nora Manzanilla, administrative coordinator of the Los Angeles Tobacco Enforcement Program. “The city attorney’s office is very interested in this.”

City Councilman Jack Weiss, who represents the Fairfax area, said officials will study other cities’ ordinances.

“The bottom line is, it’s just plain wrong for somebody to open a store for products dealing with tobacco, at best, and drug usage, at worst. It’s very disappointing to those of us in the community who want to see the areas around our schools made more conducive to kids,” Weiss said. “This is a step in the wrong direction.”

Tenth-graders Alexandra Luna and Jose Loza, both 16, agreed.

Luna said the shop is a slap at those who teach that smoking and drug use is wrong. The school has its own share of troubles. You can smell marijuana in the bathrooms between classes, Loza said.

“Students addicted to weed will go there,” he added. “It shouldn’t be in front of our school--in front of our face.”