NEWS STORY Zupan's Major Minor Problems After being busted four times last year, one of Southeast Portland's most popular grocers could be hung out to dry by the Oregon Liquor Control Commission next week. BY NIGEL JAQUISS njaquiss@wweek.com

Only two stores in Oregon, Cow Patty's in Salem and Superfine Foods in Portland, lost their licenses for selling to minors last year. If Zupan's loses its license, only the Belmont store would be affected.

Less than two years after its celebrated opening at the site of the formerly derelict Belmont Dairy, Zupan's Market faces a threat to its survival: the loss of its liquor license. Over the past 13 months the upscale grocery store, at 3301 SE Belmont St., has been cited four times for selling alcohol to minors. Now the Oregon Liquor Control Commission has scheduled a Feb. 11 hearing at which it proposes to cancel Zupan's license to sell wine and beer. Neighborhood activists are surprised by the OLCC's move against one of the most visible urban-renewal successes in Portland, a store occupying space previously inhabited by drug addicts and squatters. "We've never had any negative comments about Zupan's from the neighborhood," says Sunnyside Neighborhood Association president Tom Badrick. "Everybody forgets what a disaster the building was before. It was a real pocket of negativity." OLCC spokesperson Louise Kasper says Zupan's positive role in the Belmont area doesn't matter; the purveyor of vintage Bordeaux and fresh salmon will get the same treatment as a malt liquor and lottery-ticket merchant. The move against Zupan's strikes Badrick and others as misguided. "I'm just stunned," he says. "I recognize the value of not selling alcohol to minors, but I can't imagine this is the ultimate threat to my neighborhood." Given the store's extensive wine and beer department, some Belmont residents worry about the store's viability if the OLCC jerks its license. "It wouldn't close the store," says owner Michael Zupan, "but it would dramatically reduce our service." While Zupan's might survive without beer and wine sales, many smaller retailers couldn't. They see the crackdown on Zupan's as part of a larger issue. "I think Zupan's problem is everybody's problem," says Chris Girard, CEO of Plaid Pantries, Inc. Girard's chain of convenience stores is visited regularly by undercover agents, and he tracks statistics kept on such "stings." He says that of 854 stings last year, alcohol sellers ranging from Fred Meyer to neighborhood taverns failed 27 percent of the time. Once an establishment fails a sting, he says, it goes on the OLCC's list for further stings. "If you get visited enough times, they'll get you." Girard says. "By the time you realize you've got a problem, you end up in trouble." Zupan says all of his employees who sell alcohol attend OLCC training and are prompted by cash-register software to key in the birth date of anyone buying alcohol. Still, they make mistakes. If those mistakes are unintentional, Zupan says, they shouldn't threaten a store's livelihood. "We take every precaution we can," he says, "yet I can't control what the operator of a cash register does." State Sen. John Lim, a critic of the OLCC's sting operations, agrees. Last week, Lim introduced a bill that would make clerks responsible for their own mistakes instead of punishing store owners for employees' errors. Should Zupan's lose its license next week, the grocer can take its case to the Court of Appeals, continuing wine and beer sales in the meantime. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Willamette Week | originally published February 3, 1999