Written by William Covington, Special to the NNPA from Our Weekly
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05 November 2012
The former owner of the Payless Market in South Los Angeles, gleefully described how the Black community’s passion for malt liquor and his “unofficial grassroots advertising campaign” allowed him to significantly increase his store revenue within a few weeks and save his business. The store had a license to sell beer and wine, but to compete with liquor stores in the area, he happened upon the idea of painting on the front of his store a large sign that shouted “Cold Beer” (although then-Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas and community activist forced him to the remove it). He returned to the drawing board and put an old claw-foot bathtub filled with bottles of malt liquor under crushed ice in the middle of the store. The crude marketing ploy worked, and his malt liquor sales increased by 60 percent.
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