By Mollie Bryant
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A megachurch failed Tuesday in its attempt to evict three businesses owned by Somalis, some of whom originally came to Amarillo as refugees.
Hillside Christian Church attempted to evict the three Somali tenants, including Abdul Fatah and Jeylani Abdulle, from commercial property it owns near one of its campuses in northeast Amarillo after receiving complaints that the client base was disrupting nearby businesses.
During Tuesday’s eviction hearing, Potter County Justice of the Peace Richard Herman ruled in favor of the tenants, who own Global Discount Store, Sunshine Coffee and a clothing store in a shopping center at 3406 N.E. 24th Ave.
“Here today, I’m hearing, ‘Somalis, Somalis, Somalis,’ and I’m sorry, folks, but that’s not how we do business in Amarillo, Texas,” Herman said.
After Herman ruled in their favor, the business owners didn’t request compensation for attorney’s fees or make a counterclaim.
“It was what I expected, because we haven’t done anything wrong,” said Fatah, owner of Global Discount Store. “It was vacant almost a decade and we revived the whole area.”
Danny Fulton, Hillside’s operations director; Tom Roller, a leasing agent with Coldwell Banker; and Nicki Kimbrough of 806 Property Connection represented the church during the hearing.
The business owners said that their eviction notices stemmed from anti-Somali sentiment and neighboring tenants’ desires to expand. On the other side, four business owners and managers in the same strip mall said customers of the Somali businesses loitered, littered, sat on cars and fought in the parking lot.
“When you have a day where every patient addresses the parking lot, you have to assume it’s not good for business,” said Joel Scalf, an optician who owns Look Optical and its property at 3414 N.E. 24th Ave.
Scalf said he had asked the property manager if additional space was available in the shopping center, but he didn’t ask the church to evict the Somali tenants.
Scott Ballard, who owns a Boost Mobile store in the shopping center, said two fights had taken place outside his business in recent weeks. He also expressed concerns about litter and customers from the
Somali-owned businesses crowding the parking lot.
“They tend to congregate in front of my door,” he said. “It’s kind of intimidating to my customers, … so they don’t want to come into my business.”
At the same time, he said that he’d never had any issues with customers from the Somali-owned clothing store, which also received an eviction notice.
Each of the business owners complained that the Somali tenants could not control their clientele, but said that they sometimes served the same customers.
“I think they were singled out unfairly,” said attorney Channy Wood, who represented the Somali business owners.
“The testimony made clear to me what was going on. What it was really about was to get them out of there. It wasn’t about the parking lot.”
Herman proposed a meeting with the tenants and Potter County commissioners to find solutions to issues in the shopping center.
“If everyone can’t control their customers, it’s a community problem,” he said. “If you have young people who are acting out, we’ll put a stop to it.”