PARIS – The Muslim owner of a halal supermarket in a Paris suburb was ordered by authorities to sell pork and alcohol earlier this week if he wants to remain open, a decision the owner said he would challenge in court.

“All the stores that sell alcohol face security problems,” Soulemane Yalcin was quoted by Le Parisien, Russia Today reported on Sunday, August 7.

Ham and bacon were not sold because “there were many losses in the deli department,” he added, citing the previous Franprix sales figures.

The problem erupted when authorities in Colombes, a western-Paris suburb, said they received complaints from local residents that they could not find these products at the store.

Under the terms of his lease, Yalcin is obliged to run a ‘general food store’.

Mayor of Colombes Nicole Goueta has visited the shop previously and urged its owner to install a small area for selling alcohol

“We want a social mix,” the mayor’s chief of staff Jerome Besnard told the Telegraph.

“We don’t want any area that is only Muslim or any area where there are no Muslims,” adding that the reaction would have been the same if a kosher store had been planned to be opened at the same spot.

The definition of those general food items was challenged by Yalcin who defended his decision not to sell pork or alcohol at the shop, which opened in April 2015.

The case set to be heard in court on October 13.

“I look around me and I look to see what I can sell. The lease is for the sale of general food and related activities. It all depends on how you interpret ‘local activities’,” he told Le Parisien.

Islam takes an uncompromising stand in prohibiting intoxicants.

It forbids Muslims from drinking or even selling alcohol.

The general rule in Islam is that any beverage that get people intoxicated when taken is unlawful, both in small and large quantities, whether it is alcohol, drugs, fermented raisin drink or something else.