This is why the minister had come to complain.
Almost a month ago, Muhammad announced a 40-day campaign against what he called the ``40-ounce-liquor scandal'' plaguing inner cities. He said that a new group, Citizen Reform Action Committee (CRAC), would work to stop the sale of ``40s,'' especially in neighborhood ``stop-and-go'' takeout stores.
Before leaving Nino's, the minister described his mission to three men and a woman sitting near the door. On their table, necks protruding from brown paper bags, were three 40-ounce bottles.
``What I'm fighting now is not for adults to sit down like you're doing; this isn't good for our children to see,'' Muhammad said.
The customers did not quarrel.
``We would prefer it not to be sold around kids and at this time of the day,'' Calvin Fontaine, 43, a laborer, said. ``They would look at it as acceptable behavior.''
Stephen Harris, 45, said that he enjoyed drinking a ``40'' with friends on his day off.
``This is where most of us socialize at,'' Harris, a grocery-store worker, said.
Muhammad said that Nino's was among the stores that residents have complained about since an April 13 meeting at Muhammad's Mosque No. 12 on North Broad Street. That is when the minister handed out ``CRAC Sheets'' for people to report which stores allow drinking in front of children, selling of malt liquor to minors, and excessive glass on the ground from broken bottles.
Nino's sells a variety of food, from ham and eggs to cheesesteaks to fried shrimp. A woman who would not give her name, but who said that she was the owner's wife, later said that employees tried to keep the store clean.
Sometimes, she said, the broken glass outside came from bottles bought elsewhere. She said that children were not allowed to stay long at Nino's without parents, and not at all during school hours.
She declined to comment on Muhammad's call to keep places such as Nino's from selling malt liquor.
