State: No more liquor sales at 3rd Street Mart
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By Tory Brecht | Sunday, December 02, 2007 |
Downtown Davenport’s 3rd Street Mart will have to stop selling alcohol soon, a state official has ordered.
Iowa Alcoholic Beverages Division administrator Lynn Walding this week denied the convenience store owner’s appeal of a liquor license revocation initiated by the city.
In June, Margaret LaMarche, administrative law judge for the department, upheld the revocation of the license for the store, located at 612 W. 3rd St., because co-owner Ali “Jim” Murtaza has multiple felony convictions.
Murtaza’s seven convictions in U.S. District Court on fraud and misuse of a Social Security number made him ineligible to hold a license under the good moral character requirement of Iowa code, LaMarche wrote in her decision.
Current store owner Shahid Mahmood said Murtaza is not involved in the operation of the store any more, and he plans to appeal the board’s decision to district court.
However, in his ruling, Walding said that despite action taken to change Murtaza’s status, “Even if such action had been taken, it would have been after Murtaza’s felony convictions and would not have retroactively preserved the licensees’ right to hold the license.”
According to the ruling, Mahmood is Murtaza’s first cousin.
Walding said the ruling is the board’s final agency action, adding that the injunction means the store owners must stop selling alcohol upon receipt of the ruling.
As of Wednesday afternoon, Mahmood said he had not seen the ruling, which was issued Tuesday. His attorney, David Treimer, said he received a copy of it about 4 p.m.
City Administrator Craig Malin said he will meet with acting corporation council Tom Warner today to discuss options for enforcing the revocation.
Walding said it is up to the city to enforce the ruling.
“If you do not have a license and continue selling alcohol, that is called bootlegging, and you can be arrested for it,” he said. “Upon receipt of the decision, they have to cease operation. We anticipate the city will enforce that, especially since they initiated the request for denial of the appeal.”
The revocation comes as a relief — albeit an overdue one — from some business owners and neighbors in the area who think the store contributes to public drunkenness, loitering, littering, prostitution and other illicit activity.
“They should stop selling alcohol and be the grocery and sundries store DavenportOne sold us on,” said Shelley Sheehy, a neighborhood activist. “It was sold as a place where people from the Lend-a-Hand apartments could buy Wonder Bread and bologna, but they’re all too scared to go there.
“If they’re going to be a neighborhood grocery store, that would be dandy. But stopping selling liquor would be a great improvement in the neighborhood.”
Tory Brecht can be contacted at (563) 383-2329 or tbrecht@qctimes.com. Comment on this story at qctimes.com.
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