Sen. Deddeh's Share in Store Conflicts With Anti-Drug Role : Politicians: He claims to have no control over liquor store in Southeast San Diego that sells fortified wines and which police say is a magnet for vagrants.

By RALPH FRAMMOLINO and ALAN ABRAHAMSON

June 14, 1992 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITERS

State Sen. Wadie P. Deddeh, who has taken strong anti-drug stands and has served on legislative committees investigating substance abuse, is part-landlord in a downtown San Diego market that neighbors and police say sells fortified wines to vagrants and pipe screens to crack cocaine users.

Deddeh (D-Bonita) is one-third owner of a storefront complex on 12th Avenue and Market Street that includes the Valu-Mart market, a small grocery and deli, his economic interest statements show. He has been an owner since 1973.

San Diego police and neighboring merchants say Valu-Mart, located at 604 12th Ave., has become a magnet for criminals and vagrants because it sells high-powered beverages such as “Cisco,” stocks cheap vodka, and supplies small screens used in crack cocaine pipes.

They say the Valu-Mart proprietor--one of Deddeh’s business partners and a campaign contributor--has also shown little enthusiasm in joining community attempts to drive his customers out of the neighborhood.

“A lot of (the store’s) clientele are the crack users, the heroin users, the alcoholics that are buying the fortified wines,” said San Diego Sgt. Jim Arthur, who oversees part of the downtown police beat.

The store’s reputation figured in a recent community meeting held by Assemblywoman Dede Alpert (D-Coronado), who was trying to organize merchants into a “business watch” program to control crime. Alpert promised to approach Deddeh about the problem.

But when interviewed by The Times last week, Deddeh expressed surprise about the complaints and argued that, as landlord, there was nothing he could do.

“I don’t check on my tenants,” he said. “It’s not my job to check on my tenants. You see, tenants are there. If they are in violation of the law, I cannot enforce the law. Somebody else has the power to do that . . . .

“I own one-third of the property. That’s it. End of story.”

Deddeh agreed to talk to the market’s proprietor, Hikmat Mansour of El Cajon, who is also a part-owner, and emphasized that his tenant has not broken any laws. Alpert, neighboring merchants and police all say neither Deddeh nor Mansour are doing anything illegal.

“You tell me, what law is he violating? . . . Then, what’s the problem? What’s the problem?” Deddeh said.

Deddeh’s hands-off approach to his tenant stands in contrast to his political rhetoric as a lawmaker deeply interested in the social ills of alcohol and drugs. His Senate district includes areas hard-hit by such problems, including portions of downtown and Southeast San Diego.

Deddeh has served on a now-defunct state Senate Select Committee on Substance Abuse, which held sporadic hearings around the state to collect testimony about alcohol and drug problems. In 1989, Deddeh convened two days of hearings of his own Select Senate Committee on Border Issues, Drug Trafficking and Contraband to discuss the growing drug epidemic in the Pacific Islander and Asian community.

At one point during the hearings, Deddeh urged the federal Drug Enforcement Administration to “raise hell” with Congress about the drug war in the country.

“People don’t know how to fight this war, and it’s eating inside us,” Deddeh said. “And if, God forbid, if this country’s going to collapse, it’s not going to collapse because the Russians are going to attack us, or the Chinese . . . But we are going to collapse because this disease is eating us from within, and the flower of our youth is being destroyed.”

Cleo Malone, executive director of the Palavra Tree Inc., an alcohol recovery and treatment center in Southeast San Diego, said he’s also talked to Deddeh “dozens of times” about the proliferation of liquor outlets and the sale of fortified wines in the inner-city.

At Malone’s request, Deddeh has addressed a substance abuse conference of local clergy. And, in a 1990 letter to Malone, the lawmaker expressed interest about carrying legislation to restrict the high-powered wines.

Flavored and carbonated, fortified wines contain up to 20% alcohol, compared to 12% for table wines. They are sold in cheap, large bottles with twist-off tops and are considered the drink of choice for winos looking for a strong jolt.

“It tastes like soda pop,” said Malone, who has organized community boycotts of the Valu-Mart and other stores that sell the fortified drink. “In the last year, I’ve taken three youngsters to the hospital with acute alcohol poisoning after they drank a quart of the stuff, which is equal to 11 shots of vodka.”

City officials have condemned the wines because they contribute to public drunkenness, litter, vandalism and other crimes in the inner-city. Since 1986, San Diego city officials have used special zoning in the Gaslamp Quarter and Centre City to curtail sale of fortified wines from merchants with new liquor licenses.

The League of California Cities passed a 1989 resolution calling on the Legislature to help ban the drinks, but the alcohol beverage lobby has been able to kill several bills on the subject without so much as one committee vote.

At one point, Malone asked Deddeh for help in the Legislature and the senator responded sympathetically.

“I have read your candid letter expressing your involvement in combatting the sale of fortified wines in Southeast Central San Diego,” Deddeh wrote to Malone in September, 1990. “Your analysis of the problem reveals a crucial need for intervention and I commend you for your aggressive effort against the marketing and selling of alcohol in the community.

“I want you to know that I share your concern and will certainly look into the possibility of legislation to correct this mounting problem, although I must tell you in all honesty, it will be an up-hill battle against the wine and liquor industry.”

Deddeh never introduced any legislation.

But in the interview last week about the sale of fortified wines by his own tenant, Deddeh said he never heard about the high-powered drink before.

“The fortified wine you made reference to, that’s the first time I’ve heard of it. I don’t know what it is. I haven’t even seen it. I don’t know what it looks like. That’s the first time I’m hearing of fortified wines.”

Public records show Deddeh has accepted more than $19,000 in political contributions since 1985 from the wine and liquor industry, as well as stores that sell liquor. During his long career, he’s been a member of the Assembly and Senate committees that have direct control over alcohol bills.

Records also show that Deddeh, a Christian Iraqi born in Baghdad, built his personal fortune, in part, off liquor.

Between 1976 and 1978, Deddeh and his family members owned Oxford Liquor Inc. at 368 5th Ave. and Mr. O’s Liquor at 771 5th Ave., his economic interest statements say. In the case of Mr. O’s, Deddeh continued to collect monthly payments for his sale of the store until 1987.

Today, the only financial ties Deddeh has with liquor outlets is as landlord. Records show he owns 25% of a building leased to a liquor store at 1777 Palm Ave., near Imperial Beach. Police say they’ve noticed no unusual problems at or around the address.

Deddeh is also 33% owner of the Market Street complex, where Valu-Mart and four other tenants paid him more than $10,000 in rent last year. Equal partners are Deddeh’s brother, George, and Mansour.

State Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) records show Deddeh was never listed on the store’s liquor license although it was owned by his brother and Mansour until 1976. Since then, Mansour has been the sole owner of the license and paid $11,500 in 1982 to upgrade it so he could sell hard liquor, along with beer and wine.

Besides the Valu-Mart, tenants in the dark, low-slung building now include an auto storage warehouse, a temporary job service and an undergarment store that advertises “lovable bras and girdles.”

The corner also serves as a stop for the San Diego Trolley. Last Thursday, two police officers stood on the passenger island to keep watch over the scene. Outside the Valu-Mart, a dozen unwashed and unshaven men watched back.

Inside, the small, neat store has staples such as soaps, cereals and canned goods. Rice and beans are sold in bulk in open bins, both on special for 59-cents a pound. The coolers hold only beer. There was no drug paraphernalia available.

Fortified wines are kept with the other hard liquors, stacked on bottom shelves near a front counter. The shelves held rows of “Cisco” half-pints--called “short dogs” on the street--in such flavors as black cherry, peach and strawberry. There were also pints of Mogen David 20/20 Orange Jubilee and pocket-sized bottles of Fleischman’s vodka.

Mansour and his son, Nathan, defended their business by saying they provide a public service to the low-income neighborhood by selling groceries, meats and other deli products. Only a small amount of their business is from liquor sales, they added.

“First of all, I could tell you I have sold five bottles of Cisco today,” said Nathan Mansour, who manages the store during evening hours. “Is that a large seller? Not really. On a first of the month, when people cash their checks and they have money, yeah, maybe we sell 10 bottles a day . . . . Vodka and fortified wines are not a factor in bringing out derelicts in this area.”

Added the senior Mansour: “The problem is outside dope dealers. They’re not winos. They’re not people drinking wine . . . . It’s not our problem. I cannot be a policemen, to be outside.”

But neighboring merchants and police tell a different story.

Tod B. Firotto, who owns the San Diego Restaurant Supply opposite the market, said Mansour’s insistence on selling cheap vodka and wine--as well as the trolley stop itself--draws “dozens” of unsavory transients a day.

“Not one. Not two. But so many it’s threatening . . . to my employees and my customers,” said Firotto, who said it is not uncommon to watch drug deals out the window. “To this day, there isn’t a client who doesn’t come running in the door and say, ‘Geez, I was afraid to come into your store!’ ”

Arthur, the San Diego police sergeant, said the foot officers under his command issue 10 to 12 citations a day for public drinking in the vicinity around the store.

“We run across the drunks in the street, people sitting on sidewalks, sitting along the walls, having a beer,” he said.

In 1986, the ABC charged a Valu-Mart clerk with selling beer to an under-aged customer, an allegation that could have resulted in suspension or revocation of Mansour’s liquor license. But a San Diego administrative law judge dismissed the charge when the minor failed to appear as a witness.

Yet Arthur and others said the biggest problem with the market is its legal sale of fortified wines. Valu-Mart is exempt from restrictions in the recent city zoning ordinances because Mansour had his liquor license first. The only way the city could slap the restrictions on fortified wines there is if Mansour made some physical improvements to his store or if he sold the business to someone else.

“I don’t think the market is such a problem,” said Albert Udhe, who owns an embossing company a few doors down on 12th Avenue. “It’s what they’re selling in the market, the cheap liquor, the “Thunderbird.” If they weren’t selling any liquor, half the problem would be gone.”

Besides alcohol, Arthur said Valu-Mart attracts drug users because it sells small prefabricated screens used by cocaine addicts in their pipes. “You buy them and stick it at the end of the pipe and that way the rock (cocaine) doesn’t fall through,” Arthur said.

“They’re like a filter,” he said. “Just think of a little piece of screen that’s an inch around, an inch-and-a-half sometimes. We know what they’re used for, but it’s not illegal to sell them.”

Nathan Mansour said he does not sell any screens but acknowledges that many cocaine users buy brass scouring pads to make their own pipe filters.

“True, some people buy it,” said the younger Mansour. “Like razor blades. Do you stop selling razor blades because they cut cocaine with it? Straws, flexible straws. Do you stop selling flexible straws because they use it for cocaine? What about Elmer’s Glue? You can go on and on.”

While Mansour acknowledges that his customers may be the same transients who bother other merchants, he said he and his father fear reprisals if they ask police to crack down with sweeps and arrests outside the store.

On one occasion, a uniformed police officer came to the store and asked within earshot of a drug dealer if the market had called for an officer, the younger Mansour said. Later that night, someone broke eight windows, causing $8,000 damage, he added.

Problems with the market, as well as Deddeh’s ownership of the property, came up during a meeting three weeks ago with Alpert.

Alpert, who is trying to organize merchants into a crime-watch force, said neighboring businesses complained that Valu-Mart wasn’t eager to cooperate because it “profited” from undesirables.

Alpert said she agreed to contact Deddeh for help, but then decided to wait until after the primary elections so his ownership of the property would not be used in a “political manner” during the Democratic primary for the 50th Congressional District, in which the 71-year-old Deddeh narrowly lost to San Diego City Councilman Bob Filner.

“I (wanted to) make him aware so he would know that the tenants in the block (where) he was a partial owner weren’t cooperating with the other merchants and were possibly part of the problem out there,” said Alpert.

“In letting Senator Deddeh know, I’m sure, because of the person he is, he wouldn’t want that going on and he would want his tenants to behave to make the neighborhood a better place,” she added.

In Sacramento, Deddeh agreed he was “bothered” by the complaints but insisted he could do nothing to force a change by Mansour, whose records show has contributed a modest $850 to Deddeh’s congressional and senate races.

“I cannot go into this man’s store and say, ‘Don’t do this.’ He could throw me out. He says, ‘I have a lease here. If I’m in violation of the law, then the police have the power to tell me that. The ABC can tell me that . . . .’ ”

As for himself, Deddeh said he rarely visits his tenant.

“All I can tell you is if I stop there to see Mr. Mansour, who happens to be one of my Chaldean community friends, probably once every six months, I’ll be on my way to some speech, some luncheon,” he said. “I may stop and say hello to him and have a glass of juice and be on my way.”

Asked if he sees drug addicts, vagrants and winos gathering on his property on such occasions, Deddeh said, “I have not seen that.”

“What you are describing, I have not seen. I have seen four, five people standing. But then are they standing to buy in the store and come out? Are they waiting for the trolley?

“I don’t know. I don’t ask people why they’re standing there. It’s not my job.”