A halal market must be shut down for refusing to sell pork and alcohol, a court in France has ruled, according to The Independent.
Located in Colombes, a suburb of Paris, the market reportedly did not comply with the conditions of its lease to serve as a "general food store", according to the court's ruling.
The Independent reports that the store stocked almost exclusively halal items and did not sell products such as pork or alcohol.
Local authorities argued that the store's refusal to sell non-halal products did not properly serve the community or fit with the store's contractual obligations.
Now, the lease of the store has been canceled and the store's owner must pay a fine of 4,000 Euros ($4,736) to cover court fees.
The store's manager simply says he was meeting the needs of the community, suggesting there wasn't any demand for non-halal products.
"It’s business," Soulemane Yalcin said, according to The Telegraph.
"I look around me and I target what I see. The lease states ‘general food store and related activities’ - but it all depends on how you interpret ‘related activities'," he explained.
However, the local mayor’s chief of staff, Jérôme Besnard, said that residents – particularly the elderly – had complained that they were no longer able to get the products they were used to.
“The mayor of Colombes, Nicole Goueta, went there herself and asked the owner to diversify the range of products by adding alcohol and non-halal meats,” Besnard said.
“We want a social mix. We don’t want any area that is only Muslim or any area where there are no Muslims,” he added.
But Yalcin believes that his business has been discriminated against, citing many specialty shops around France that only sell specific products.
In the end, the court believes the selection of product at his store did not fit within the requirements of his lease. The court said Yalcin's selection was "restrictive and did not fit the broad concept of general good".