August 17, 2006 Issue                                       

©2006 The Chestnut Hill Local

The Corner Deli dilemna: A case against blight
First of two parts
by JENNIFER KATZ

Neighbors of the Corner Deli at Germantown Avenue and Hortter Street say the beer-to-go business is a neighborhood blight.

On any given morning, Sheldon Kilby can witness his neighbors getting in their cars to drive to work, hurrying their children out the door, straightening book bags and double checking for lunches and house keys. The 100 block of East Hortter Street in Mount Airy, where Kilby has lived for the last 11 years, is remarkable only in that it is completely ordinary.

Most of the two-story row houses are marked with worn wooden banners displaying the house numbers dead center on the front of the brick edifice. People wash their cars in the street. Children play on the sidewalks and the porches. Neighbors hang out on the steps talking loudly and laughing with abandon. A blue, painted brick house at the end of the block stands out all the more so as the rest of the houses blend together.

That is the street that Kilby moved to and that is the neighborhood he hopes to see each morning. But for years, the morning mélange was tainted by the sounds and anticipation of the trouble gathering at the other end of his street.

By mid-morning, just a block-and-a-half away, Kilby and his neighbors knew that a small group was beginning to collect at the corner of Germantown Avenue and Hortter Street. The group averaged six or seven men who would begin to trickle into Corner Deli, a small grocery establishment, better known for its sale of take out alcohol than food or household items.

Within minutes of the store’s opening, these men would appear on the sidewalk just outside the door drinking from containers hidden in brown bags. They would spend hours on the corner drinking and getting drunk. The neighbors would regularly see inebriated men straggling down the street, dropping bottles on lawns or in bushes.

“I watched as people would walk down the street from the corner and relieve themselves on my lawn or my neighbor’s lawn,” said Kilby.

Eric Fontenot, another resident of the 100 block of East Hortter Street, said it wasn’t necessary to actually see the people urinating in public (although he did also witness this several times), because the smell of urine was so pervasive. Fontenot, current president of the Pelham Town Watch, moved to the street three years ago from Center City. The group of drinkers was disruptive and often aggressive towards residents, he said.

“They would block the sidewalk and make lewd comments to women who were passing by,” Fontenot said .

The group would stay there throughout the day and into the evening as late at 11 p.m., dispersing only when the store closed or police arrived, and the police arrived often.

According to police records, they were called at least 16 times to respond to issues outside the deli in 2005. Police said the actual number of calls related to the deli location is most likely higher because the tracking system records calls by address. Thus, the report would only show calls that were reported at 6643 Germantown Ave., the official address of the deli. It would not reflect calls made simply to Germantown Avenue and Hortter Street or any other house address on the surrounding blocks.

Kilby said he knows this for a fact because he called the police when a fight broke out one night at the corner and the address he provided was Germantown Avenue and Hortter Street. Kilby said he made several calls regarding some of the behavior he saw outside of the deli. His call never made the police report.

One incident ironically occurred when he was exiting a Safety Network meeting on nuisance issues not 500 yards from the deli corner. Kilby said a disturbance had broken out and the police were called.

***

As Executive Director of Mt. Airy USA, a nonprofit community development organization aimed at revitalizing the Germantown Avenue corridor, Farah Jimenez would sit in her office at 6639-41 Germantown Ave. working with business owners and community leaders on projects ranging from funding façade improvement grants to the building mixed-use developments. Her next-door neighbor was Corner Deli, a source of constant and continual frustration.

“We attempted to buy the deli from its landlord several times,” said Jimenez. “We had trouble renting space in our building because of the deli.”

Jimenez’s office tried twice unsuccessfully to buy the property at 6643 Germantown Ave. The first time was after the previous owner, Frank Jacquinto, died and his estate sold all six of the storefronts he owned including both Corner Deli and Mt. Airy USA’s office building. They were only able to purchase five of Jacquinto’s properties. Corner Deli was sold to Canute Gardiner.

“We hoped that Canute would change the business and the activities surrounding it,” Jimenez said. “It had a pretty seedy reputation including selling alcohol to underage customers.”

For years, Mt. Airy USA tried to strike a deal with Gardiner who was asking the community development organization to pay $300,000, much more than market value, Jimenez said.

Then in 2004, Gardiner sold Corner Deli in a deal that made Lim Siam Ngor the building’s new owner but not the proprietor of the business. Adam Xu, president of the Asian-American Licensed Beverage Association, filed for the transfer of the store’s liquor license.

In November of 2004, Jimenez spoke at the license transfer hearing hoping to forge a working relationship with Xu to improve the conditions at Corner Deli.

“I went to the hearing, knowing nothing about Xu and the kind of business he intended to run,” Jimenez said. “We knew that he had a restaurant in Franklin Mills (mall) and that was it.

“We had attempted to contact him before the hearing but we weren’t successful, so the liquor license hearing was the first time we meet and spoke with him.”

Xu was receptive to the director’s offer of assistance with façade improvement funding and expressed a desire to work with the community, Jimenez said.

After the hearing, however, repeated attempts from October 2004 to March 2005 to discuss design assistance via telephone, mail and in person, went unanswered.

***

Two years ago there was a rash of burglaries in the immediate vicinity of Corner Deli. Concerned and fed up, the neighbors, decided to reform the Pelham Town Watch.

“The number of crimes in the neighborhood was the impetus for the town watch,” said Kilby. “But as soon as we met, the talk turned to Corner Deli.

“The neighbors were aware of transient people, coming and going to the deli to buy alcohol.”

The high level of foot traffic in and around the deli was disconcerting to the neighbors who feared the public consumption of alcohol was possibily masking a more serious and dangerous problem.

Tonya Ladipo, a three-year-resident of the 100 block of East Horter Street, said she suspected that some of the men loitering on the corner were selling drugs.

“I’ve seen little baggies and other drug paraphernalia,” she added, “but what really made me think that this was going on was watching people standing there in the middle of winter not doing anything. Then a car would drive up, stop by them and drive off. I would see people sitting in their cars with the engines running.”

Ladipo is not off base in her suspicion. In 2002, the police department designated the corner of Germantown Avenue and Hortter Street a Safe Streets corner, according to Sgt. Suzanne Demalto, Safe Streets coordinator for the 14th district. Operation Safe Streets was a Mayoral initiative aimed at disrupting and deterring the drug trade by putting police officers on specifically identified “drug corners.” At the onset of the program, uniformed officers were stationed at the designated corners. By the summer of 2003, however, the city was no longer able to fund the program at that level and patrol officers were assigned to roving beats that often encompassed several of the corners, said Demalto.

Kilby said all the evidence anyone should need to know is that whatever was going on in and around Corner Deli, it was not safe to go into the deli itself. According to Kilby, upon taking possession of the store, Xu promptly encased the counter and register behind bulletproof glass.

“It’s obvious that in his mind, he thought his business was dangerous,” said Kilby. “He clearly made the effort to protect his business and his employees.”

***

In early summer of 2005, as frustrations in Mt. Airy grew, State Sen. Anthony Williams (D-8th district) was planning an 11th hour amendment to a bill cruising through the legislature that would provide unprecedented relief to neighborhoods battling nuisance establishments.

After years of struggling with similar issues at various bars and stores throughout his district in South and West Philadelphia, Williams was determined to find a way to provide communities with an immediate remedy.

“I wanted to find a tool to empower people who live in these communities, who feel powerless,” Williams said. “I knew there had to be a way for the people to at the local level to be heard so the LCB would understand when they make their decisions what these types of nuisance bars do to a community.”

Act 39 requires a licensee to obtain a special permit to sell “beer-to-go.” The permit application must be accompanied by approval from city council. This created the immediate impact and local involvement that Williams sought.

As of Oct. 31, 2005, any business wishing to sell beer-to-go had to apply for a special permit. This meant that if Xu wanted to continue conducting business as usual at Corner Deli he had to appear before city council and convince them to approve his application. It also meant that the community would be there too.

Contact staff writer Jennifer Katz at 215-248-8804 or jenn@chestnuthilllocal.com.