Simple Beverages and Cigars sells everything most liquor stores
sell, and more. Drugs were also being sold out of the downtown
Morgan Hill store, police said after they arrested the owner.
Simple Beverages and Cigars sells everything most liquor stores sell, and more. Drugs were also being sold out of the downtown Morgan Hill store, police said after they arrested the owner.
Jun Kim, 32, of San Jose, was arrested on suspicion of being under the influence of a controlled substance, alleged possession for sales of marijuana, possession for sales of cocaine, possession for sales of methamphetamine, maintaining a business for selling controlled substances, possession of paraphernalia and possession of firearms with drugs. He was booked into Santa Clara County Jail.
Kim was stopped by Morgan Hill police just before 1 a.m. Saturday for a vehicle code violation. He was under the influence of a controlled substance, police said. Officers asked his consent to search his store and he agreed, Morgan Hill Special Operations Sgt. Jerry Neumayer said.
During the search, officers found a shotgun in the back room of the store. Near the cash register at the front counter of the store, officers found more than 1,000 plastic baggies, the kind typically used for packaging drugs, 142 plastic pipes commonly used for smoking meth, 20 Vicodin pills, marijuana, about 2.5 grams of cocaine, a soda-type can with a false bottom, a switchblade, a handgun, bullets, a TASER and a stun baton.
“Our street crimes team had been receiving information about possible narcotics activity at the business, and as a result had been conducting surveillance of the business for the last two months,” Neumayer said.
Jason Kim, brother of Jun Kim, was manning the store Thursday morning.
“I live in San Francisco, but family comes first, of course I had to come help out,” he said, trying to help a customer with a price even though he is unfamiliar with the merchandise. “We’ve seen him change the last few months, staying out late, not sleeping, but when we ask him what is wrong, he yells, ‘Nothing is wrong.'”
The store will stay open, he said, because it’s what provides his parents, the rest of his family, with a living, though Jason Kim said he has his own business in San Francisco.
Jason Kim said though he and the family are not sure they can believe everything Jun Kim has to say about the situation, Jun Kim told them that a woman who worked in the store set up the drug dealing enterprise, and Jun Kim got involved, even started using methamphetamine.
He doesn’t know the woman’s full name, Jason Kim said, and he believes she has left the area.
“Jun was doing so well here for four or five years, taking care of his family … but like six or seven months ago, things were going bad, business was getting slow, maybe that’s when he started, or maybe the drugs were the problem, we don’t know,” he said.
According to Jason Kim, Jun Kim is still in county jail. He said the original bail was set at $100,000, but though it has been lowered to $45,000, the family could not bail him out. Several of the charges against him are felony charges,
Calls to Kim’s attorney, Alex Park, were not immediately returned.
