Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
Uncertain Future: McGoon's Grog Shop, originally opened in 1968, has been run by owner Hamid Heydarian. The store is facing demolition as the defunct Rolling Hills Shopping Center is being torn down.
Saving McGoon's from demolition
Neighbors rally to help liquor store owner stay open in Campbell
By Moryt Milo
Campbell's 35-year-old liquor store, McGoon's Grog Shop, is being threatened with demolition, and its owner has gathered more than 1,000 signatures to save it from the wrecking ball.
The store, which sits at the intersection of San Tomas Aquino Road and Hacienda Avenue, is the sole survivor of the once vibrant Rolling Hills Shopping Center.
Shop owner Hamid Heydarian is trying to save his store and he plans to submit the signatures to Campbell's Planning Department.
But saving the store may take a miracle. The center, which sits on 7.5 acres of land, is being demolished. The property is being sold and the city would like to see it developed with residential homes.
Heydarian is hoping to find a compromise. The community he has been servicing for more than 20 years is standing by his side.
San Tomas Neighborhood Association President Susan Waher says, "We would like him to stay. He has been responsive to the neighborhood."
Eddie Tosang, who's managed the store for 15 years, says, "If you sit around for a half hour and watch the people coming to the store, you will see everyone knows each other. It's a real neighborhood place."
It's hard to imagine a store that sells liquor as anything but positive, yet if you look beyond the surface, its owner is a person involved in his community, Waher says.
Heydarian says he has weathered some tough times. When he first bought the store, the shopping center was a neighborhood hub. There was a gas station on the southeast corner, in front of Heydarian's store. The center had a grocery store (Food Villa) and a coffee shop (Goodies Restaurant), as well as a barbershop, dry cleaners, hardware shop, video store and other small stores servicing the local community.
But when the owner died in 1992, the center became part of a trust, and as store leases came up for renewal, the trust only wanted to offer tenants rent on a month-to-month basis.
"One by one the shopkeepers started leaving because they never knew when they might be kicked out," Heydarian says.
Even as stores left, perspective tenants still made inquiries about leasing space. A bingo hall and ice hockey rink were eager to rent, but without a long-term lease it was too risky and the deals never were finalized, Heydarian says.
But Heydarian stayed and continued to operate on a month-to-month basis, and took it on faith that everything would be OK and he wouldn't be squeezed out.
"The administrators of the trust promised me if I was asked to leave, I would be given a minimum six-month notice to find another location," he says. "I simply trusted this to be true."
Heydarian, 49, recalls driving around the neighborhood in 1982 with his wife, looking for a business to purchase.
"I pulled in to check out [the store] and my wife said, 'I give you 10 minutes in there,'" he says laughing. "She never thought I'd buy it. But I liked the charm and area of the store. I thought it had potential."
He was so confident that he bought a store on the verge of bankruptcy and turned it around from a place that attracted derelicts to a friendly and safe neighborhood store.
Although primarily a liquor store, he has expanded the store to include some groceries, fresh coffee, sundries, and has put a couple of tables and chairs outside where people can sit and chat.
"I know 90 percent of my customers by first name," Heydarian says. "The neighborhood and the people who live here are like family to me."
Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
Pending Move: McGoon's Grog Shop has been a fixture at the now-defunct Rolling Hills Shopping Center for more than three decades.
But for the remaining tenants it was all business. Neither the charm of the community nor good faith could keep the other store owners in the center. By the end of last year, the only occupant left at the center was a bar, the Village Inn, which locals say attracted the wrong kind of people.
For 10 years, Heydarian tried unsuccessfully to negotiate with the trust to buy the store's parcel of land and the piece of land in front of the store that once housed the gas station.
"I asked them to sell this portion but they never agreed," he says. "They told me I could never afford it. Of course I can't afford it now, but I might have been able to do something 10 years ago."
His request to be given first right of refusal to purchase the land seemed logical because, as he says, "No one is going to want their house on a former gas station site."
When the neighbors learned that the center was being torn down, they decided it was time to take up Heydarian's cause.
He had always been there for them keeping vagrants away, watching out for the neighborhood children, cleaning up the litter, even putting on a car wash fundraiser for the victims of Sept. 11, raising more than $2,300.
"[Hadim] didn't say anything about what was happening to him so someone else had to say something," San Tomas neighborhood resident Tom Amii says.
Amii, 71, has lived in the neighborhood for 30 years and is glad the community started a petition. He signed it and so did customers Donald and Patty Siek, who have been part of the neighborhood since 1978 and whose son worked at Heydarian's store while going to high school.
"I would hate to see them drive Hadim out of here just to put in more homes. We need the services," Donald Siek says.
With the shopping center gone and nothing close by, the neighbors often gather at the store during their walks. They would like Heydarian to expand the store to include a deli or change it into a small grocery store.
"We lost our places to interact with each other when we lost our Little League fields," Waher says. "We don't have a place where older kids can go for an ice cream, adults can stop for a coffee, or older folks can meet while out walking. If Hadim could provide these things at his location, it would be very appealing."
But whether Heydarian can expand or change his store depends on the new owner.
Until sold, the center, which was built in 1968 and is part of the Vecchioli Family Trust, is being administered by U.S. Trust Company.
Trust company Vice President Doug Strode says, "The trust had ongoing internal issues that took a long time to resolve."
It is also the reason for the shopping center's neglect and blighted condition.
Strode said that because their firm has only been administering the trust since 1997, he was not comfortable speaking about the trust's prior problems.
But Campbell Community Development Director Sharon Fierro says, "The city's had complaints for years about the rundown condition of the shopping center. It was apparent as things in the center worsened that the trust didn't have any interest in addressing the problem until we put pressure on them to either fix it up and make it look like the Pruneyard or demolish it."
Last year, the trust decided that retail wasn't the best use for the land, Strode says, and determined that redevelopment was the best direction. This led the trust to seek out a buyer, with whom it is currently in negotiations.
Campbell, California
