Khalid Khan says his business lives or dies off the 40-ounce bottle of beer.
His store, Don's Bottle Shop on the corner of 16th and F streets in Sacramento, has taken a big hit recently, he said. Slapped with a temporary injunction on Oct. 1, he's no longer allowed to sell the large bottles of cheap alcohol.
City officials, who served Khan with the injunction, said his and another business in the Alkali Flat neighborhood have been epicenters of drunken vagrancy and other nuisance behaviors.
But Khan said his business serves the neighborhood by offering a place to shop. He said his responsibility ends at the door, and that police should be responsible for what happens outside the store.
"It's my responsibility to keep this shop clean," Khan said, "not the neighborhood."
Khan's business and Tru Valu Market, 1001 E St., were the targets of stings by the state department of Alcoholic Beverage Control starting late last year, according to court documents filed in support of the temporary injunction.
According to ABC investigators, Khan allegedly bought liquor from an undercover ABC agent even after he was informed it had been stolen.
In addition, Khan allegedly cashed out a welfare card the undercover agent told him wasn't his, an affidavit filed with the Sacramento Superior Court states.
ABC's operations put the two businesses on the radar screen of the Sacramento City Attorney's Office, said Gustavo Martinez, a deputy city attorney and supervisor of the office's Neighborhood Safety and Nuisance Abatement Section. Martinez said his office decided to take action under a new program called "Justice For Neighbors."
Using the city attorney's power, his office called for the injunction, ordering the two business owners to stop selling individual bottles of beer, malt liquor and wine coolers.
Martinez said that those products "attract transients and hard-core alcoholics."
"(They) are drawn to them because they're inexpensive and easy to obtain," he said.
Martinez said Khan and Saber Shehadeh, the owner of the Tru Valu Market, contributed to the blight around their businesses by doing nothing to shoo away people who congregated behind the store to drink and by not paying for a security guard to keep troublemakers away.
Not doing so, Martinez said, creates a public nuisance. "If they added 2 to 3 cents to the price of a 40 (-ounce bottle of beer), they could pay for a security camera," Martinez said. "(By not doing so) the Sacramento Police Department becomes your private security guard and the taxpayers are paying for your security."
The injunction, which could become permanent pending a hearing Oct. 20, is necessary because waiting for the state to revoke a liquor license could take years, counting appeals, Martinez said.
Martinez said the city is not looking to revoke their licenses, but to force Khan to operate the business in a more socially desirable way.
But Khan said the city's offers of a truce, which include him cutting his hours of operation to 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. and installing a high-powered outside light and a security camera, are too high a price for him to pay. The stipulation that he not sell individual bottles of beer or malt liquor is already killing his business, he said.
"My sales per day are between $300 and $500," Khan said. "They used to be $900 to $1,200."
Khan's business is surrounded by a vacant lot – a magnet, he said, for homeless people. In addition, his grocery and liquor store is near Loaves & Fishes and the Salvation Army, operations he said contribute more to the homeless problem than he does.
"They go and feed the homeless," he said. "What right do I have not to sell to the homeless?"
Khan said he depends on the business to feed his nine-person family and pay his four employees. The actions of the city, he said, constitute harassment.
Khan said he's proud of the business he has owned for the last 16 years. He said he's proud of how clean he keeps his property and for operating what he said neighbors call a "mini Wal-Mart."
What goes on beyond his property lines is not his problem, Khan said.
"They try and make me a policeman," he said. "I'm just a business owner."
Call The Bee's Stan Oklobdzija, (916) 608-7453.
