SMOKE SHOP FEELING HEAT OVER PIPES

Community Leader Says Drug Paraphernalia Sold

Wedged between a family restaurant and a barber shop, Skyline Smoke and
Gift Shop sells dozens of pipes in bright purples, greens, reds and blues.
Its stock includes pipes shaped like football helmets, glass-blown pipes
and one-foot-tall pipes.

Signs scrawled on notebook paper hang from the glass cases, instructing
customers how the pipes should be used. "All items are for tobacco use
only," one sign says. "No drug slang will be allowed," says another.

A community leader says the pipes are clearly intended for illegal drugs,
not tobacco. "We're not stupid," said Cathy Ramsey-Harvey, president of the
Greater Skyline Hills Community Association.

She wants the shop shut down, and says she has told the owner as much. She
knows how drug use often leads to violence.

"We don't want young people hanging out and killing each other," she said.
"We've had enough of that."

Duraid Hallak, who opened the store at Skyline and South Meadowbrook drives
two months ago, said some members of the community are glad to have a local
business where they can purchase tobacco pipes and supplies.

"I'm not trying to tell everybody, 'Start smoking,' " he said. "I'm trying
to create a convenience for people who do smoke."

If people buy the pipes to use with illegal drugs, he asked, "Is that
really my problem?"

Cleo Malone, founder of a drug prevention center, thinks it is.

"He don't give a damn about the public health of the people he's selling
to," Malone said. All Hallak does for the community, he said, is "take the
money and run."

Malone wants the Skyline smoke shop, and others like it in San Diego, shut
down.

"What they really are is legitimate areas to sell drug paraphernalia," he
said. "We don't want it, and we aren't going to allow it to exist."

He has organized a protest march and rally today, beginning at 10 a.m. A
news conference is scheduled for 11 a.m. in front of the store.

The community's concerns have been forwarded to the San Diego City
Attorney's Office by the San Diego Police Department.

About 30 to 40 members of the community met with Hallak a few months ago to
discuss the concept for the store. Several said he agreed not to open the
business after they expressed concerns.

Hallak says he told the community members that if they could think of
another business that he could put in the 400-square-foot space, he would
gladly do so. They never presented a solution, he said, and two months ago
he opened the tobacco shop.

He says he has since sold it to Ala Suleiman, who could not be reached for
comment.

Hallak said his offer to open another business in the shopping center east
of Morse High School is still on the table.

His mother owns the shopping center, which contains Moonlite Market &
Liquor, where his father, Sleiman "Pops" Hallak, was slain in 1996 while
working behind the counter.

A flier for today's event calls on members of the community to stop "the
poisoning of our youth, the degradation of our communities and businesses
that profit off the misery of others."

Malone, who runs The Palavra Tree Inc., an alcohol, tobacco and drug
prevention, recovery and treatment center, has called on the community for
support. Members of the Coalition of Neighborhood Councils, Black Men
United and several churches have agreed to join today's rally.

Vernon Brinkley, executive director of the coalition and a resident of the
adjacent Lomita neighborhood, said the community has been working for years
to change its reputation for drug dealing and drug abuse.

Brinkley views the opening of the store as the owner trying to benefit from
the drug problem.

"They're saying to our young people, 'Continue doing what you're doing,' "
Brinkley said.

Patricia Osborne, who manages Major's Family Restaurant next door, said she
supports the owner's right to make a living. She said she believes the
owner is being respectful of the community by closing on evenings and Sundays.

"They don't bother me," she said.

People who don't like the premise of the smoke shop can stay at home, she
said. "They don't have to come over here."