Manager: Lost liquor license will ruin Gina’s

By Elise Franco

efranco@vindy.com

Youngstown

The manager of Gina’s Food Market says the store won’t survive without its liquor permit.

The Ohio Department of Commerce Division of Liquor Control notified Gina’s, in the Idora neighborhood at 1942 Glenwood Ave., last Wednesday that its liquor license would not be renewed for 2011-12.

A letter was sent to the company shareholder Ahmad Y. Jundi.

Store manager Billy Hasan said he believes the business will go under without its main source of income, liquor.

“I don’t think it was the right decision to do this. ... The store with no license; we won’t be able to survive,” he said. “The alcohol is what will attract the people.”

Councilman Paul Drennen, D-5th, said its the type of people the business attracts that prompted council to request the denial of the permit in December 2010.

“Our testimony and hard work paid off as far as convincing the [Division of Liquor Control] that Gina’s was not a favorable store,” he said. “I’d spoken to [Hasan] several times about the problems there.”

Drennen, elected in May 2007, said since he’s been in office four city establishments, including Gina’s, have lost their liquor permits.

“These stores have not been good stores. Crime comes out of these stores,” he said. “Gina’s can still stay open, but they can’t sell liquor anymore.”

Drennen said the problem was the loiterers the business drew.

“There’s the same loiterers drinking outside, urinating outside, and they bother the people at the community farms,” he said. “I think the breaking point was when one of the men hanging out there harassed one of the children planting at a nearby garden.”

Hasan said he thinks it’s the police department’s job to handle what happens outside the walls of his store.

“That’s the city and the police’s jobs, to have control over what happens outside the store,” he said.

Youngstown has 24 more liquor licenses issued than it should based on the 2010 population — more over quota than any other municipality in Mahoning and Trumbull counties, according to data from the Division of Liquor Control.

The city has enough liquor permits for an area with more than 96,000 residents, but as the 2010 census shows, the population is only 66,982.

The letter outlining the division’s decision gave reasons for not renewing the permit.

Gina’s is located “with respect to the neighborhood that substantial interference with public decency, sobriety, peace or good order would result from the renewal of the permit,” the letter stated.

It also said that the listed corporation, Jundi Inc., isn’t in good standing with the Ohio Secretary of State.

The corporate charter was previously canceled for nonpayment of franchise taxes, the letter said.

Matt Mullins, spokesman for the Division of Liquor Control, said the business owner has 30 days to file an appeal.