SF State students joined other Bay Area Muslim activists in a march to Oakland City Hall Saturday to protest Muslim-owned liquor stores selling alcohol, which they believe breaks Muslim law and leads to the decay of the community.

“This is an ongoing struggle — it’s been going on for years,” said Darrell Rahman, treasurer of the San Francisco Muslim Community Center.

“Muslims across the board are against this,” said Mikael Santini, an SF State student and member of the Muslim Student Association. “They should honor their religious teachings.”

The group consisted of about 70 men, women and children marching in the rain from De Fremery Park on 17th and Adeline Street at 11 a.m. with picket signs, chanting, “Hey hey, ho ho, these liquor stores have got to go!” on their megaphones.

Marchers were escorted by Your Black Muslim Bakery, Inc. members dressed in black coats and bowties, who jogged alongside luxury cars with crescent flags displayed on the hoods of each vehicle.

In November, six members of Your Black Muslim Bakery, Inc. pleaded not guilty to vandalizing two West Oakland liquor stores.

The marchers confronted workers behind the counters of three liquor stores, while Your Black Muslim Bakery, Inc. members stood watch in the entrance of each store, monitoring the scene. Imam Zaid Shakir of Muslims for Healthy Communities gave the employees a written statement requesting them to stop selling alcohol.

Shakir told an employee of Bottles Liquor at 1150 Market Street that “the one that sells from [alcohol] and makes money from it is cursed [and] doomed to hell.”

The store clerk, who wished to remain anonymous, said, “I think about it frequently. Just because I haven’t taken the motion to [stop selling alcohol], it doesn’t mean I haven’t thought about it.”

The employee, whose family owns the business, expressed anger that certain liquor stores were being targeted, and that the protesters had not visited the local grocery stores in the area that also participate in the sale of alcohol.

“I want you to pinpoint it to everybody else,” he said.
Shakir later said to Ali Abraham, a liquor store employee at S & A Market on Jefferson and 14th Street, “As a Muslim, you’re going to be part of the solution or part of the problem.”

Abraham, a friend of the store’s owner, said, “People in America have the right to protest, but there is a law in this country. We live under the boundary of the law. We are not excluded,” he said. “We didn’t invent liquor stores.”

In Oakland there is one liquor store for every 580 people, despite state limits mandating only one for every 1250 people. Of the 350 stores, almost 90 percent of them are owned or operated by Muslims.

“The high concentration of liquor stores needs to end,” Santini said. “People in these communities have been talking about why we have so many liquor stores.”

“There’s so much crime centered in the liquor stores,” he continued.

Alcohol causes as many as 105,000 deaths each year in the country and has been linked to a variety of health problems and violence.

Yara Badday, an SF State graduate student present at the protest, said she is currently writing her thesis on the issue.

The group eventually made it to Frank Ogawa Plaza in front of City Hall, where over 100 supporters listened to several Muslim speakers.

“We need to help lift this community up — not keep it down,” said Souleiman Ghali from the Islamic Society of San Francisco.

The event ended with the group forming several lines to perform their noontime prayer.