Old newspapers line the windows of what used to be the Clara Market on East Colfax, the shop sits empty, still for rent.

The shops former owners, Mohamad Aboub and family are officially out of the convenience-store biz, Aboub says, after pleading guilty to unauthorized use of a transaction device and credit card fraud in April. The plea caught the father and son each a couple of years probation and a $1,500 fine for a food stamp scam that they were running out of Clara which was busted by undercover cops who also set the Iraqis up for theft by receiving charges by selling them stolen cigarettes.

No doubt somewhere in town there’s a storage facility stuffed with Clara Market’s eclectic collection of goods, ranging from knives to glass pipes, fake guns, canned goods and souvenirs from foreign nations. Aboub said his family is up to “a whole new thing,” since the plea, he said, declining to elaborate on the new family business. --Luke Turf

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