Chaudhry Keeps Charity in Mind at His Minimart

Afzal Chaudhry

By Laurel Busby

News & Information Editor

When the Jan. 7 Palisades Fire broke out, Afzal (A.C.) Chaudhry saw the smoke through his State Beach Liquor Mini Mart window.

He thought it was a single house, but soon afterwards an unprecedented number of fire trucks and police cars went zipping past the store.

“I looked out the window again, and the fire was spreading out of control,” he said. “There was thick smog. The wind was changing directions. By around 5 p.m., I said, ‘It’s time to get out.’”

By then people were running down Chautauqua from Sunset, and the police working to direct them, he said. Chaudhry anticipated that the fire would soon be under control, but, of course,  it kept burning for the next two days.

Despite the dangers, on Jan. 9, he was determined to return to his store and find a way to help.

“I cannot stay away,” he recalled thinking. “My community needs me now. During the Covid time, they came to the store and supported me. Now it’s my turn to support them.”

He parked above the Canyon on Wilshire Blvd. and walked down to see how he could help the situation. He met fire fighters and police officers who he offered free water and drinks from his store. Over the coming days, he continued his daily trek from Santa Monica into the Canyon, and continued to offer drinks and sustenance to the first responders as well as frustrated residents trying to reach their homes, City Councilwoman Traci Park’s staff, and members of the National Guard manning the checkpoints.

Since his power was out, people offered to pay with cash since it would have been impossible to pay by credit card, but Chaudhry said he declined to accept their money during those initial weeks after the fire outbreak. He eventually received permission to drive down with a stocked car of drinks, so that he could continue to help anyone who needed it.

By February, he had started to sell his wares again, but there were few customers since many Palisadians had lost their homes and Canyon residents had no water or power. Checkpoints also meant that there were few people driving to the area. He ran through his savings until finally sales increased to the point that he could pay his bills. Still sales are about 45 percent of what they would be in a typical summer.

Chaudhry joined the new Canyon Business Association, which is a group of Canyon business owners working to both revive their businesses and aid the local community. The group has begun to brainstorm ways to improve the situation.

“We’re working on having events once or twice a year so the community can come and enjoy each other and get to know us too,” Chaudhry said. “We are part of the community. Most of us have been here 20 years or more.”

Chaudhry joined the Canyon community, when he bought the minimart to assist his family. He had moved to the United States from Pakistan in 1985 when he began studying business administration and economics at Cal State LA. He held several jobs over the years, including working at a bank andin  an architectural firm, before become the security supervisor for a building after graduation.

He also began taking accounting and management courses at UCLA Extension, paving his way to becoming the manager of the Del Capri Hotel in Santa Monica. Then, in 2004, he learned about a business opportunity.

“Someone offered to sell the minimart to me, and I accepted right away,” he said. “The main reason was to help my family, so they could improve their lives more easily and faster.”

Chaudhry has seven siblings—six brothers and one sister—who have all immigrated from Pakistan to the United States. Like Chaudhry, his family members have studied and worked hard to make a way for themselves in their new homeland. Like him, they also began raising their families here. He now has a niece who is a doctor, another who is an engineer, and a third who is a pharmacist. Three of his nephews will start at UCLA in the fall.

“We are a successful family,” he said. “Thank God.”

Chaudhry continued to work in hotel management while various family members oversaw his store, and he eventually relocated to San Francisco, where he took charge of the City Garden Hotel in 2004.

In 2013, his family, which includes his wife and three children, wished to return to the Los Angeles area, so they moved back to Santa Monica. At first, he took a six-month break from work because he was exhausted from the challenges of his previous job, then he started running the minimart in person.

The following year, Pacific Palisades began an intense effort to address homelessness, and Sharon Kilbride, the current Canyon representative to the Pacific Palisades Community Council, said that Chaudhry tried to do what he could to assist the effort. For example, he promised to be cautious in his sales and not sell more than one alcoholic item to a customer each day.

In addition, he donated water for the Santa Monica Canyon Civic Association meetings, and he handed out cards to connect the unhoused with outreach workers hired by the Pacific Palisades Task Forse on Homelessness.

“He’s a good contact,” said Kilbride, a Boca resident who noted that there used to be about 200 homeless camps in the area. “A lot of the unhoused go in the minimart to try to buy alcohol and cigarettes…. When someone has a real problem and is a nuisance, he doesn’t serve them.”

Chaudhry is proud of the reduction in homelessness in the area, and he hopes the changes have made his business more welcoming and safer for Canyonites who were nervous to enter the store. He also noted that he tries to keep prices as reasonable as he can for a small store, so that people don’t have to drive out of town for drinks and snacks.

“Throughout my life, whatever I do, I do from the heart, not just to work,” he said. “It can’t be only about money.”