SAN JOSE — In a building where his father’s liquor store once drew the wrath of neighbors, Ranbir Sanghera is growing a new business based on health. San Jose Barbell offers a unique story of urban rebirth and goodwill.
“This place actually changed my life,” said David Bloch, an U.S. Army veteran whose injuries were so severe doctors once told him he would never walk again. Aside from the personal training, there’s another reason he shows up every week to grunt and sweat.
“It’s the sense of community here,” Bloch said. “You really feel you’re among friends. Everybody pulls for everybody else.”
San Jose Barbell sits in a former Guru’s Food & Liquor on North 13th Street in the city’s old Northside, a mostly working-class, multiethnic neighborhood that seems to have turned a corner in its quarter-century struggle against the proliferation of liquor stores.
During the holidays, the base of a Christmas tree overflowed with new toys purchased by members for local kids, and Frank Sinatra tunes wafted over a health club the neighborhood has come to embrace.
One resident who lives a few blocks away and works at City Hall was especially happy to see the gym open in June 2013.
“I can’t think of a better use than a health club supplanting a liquor store right there on 13th Street,” said Mayor Sam Liccardo. As a councilman, he supported efforts by central city residents to bring liquor stores under control. “I’m very grateful for Ranbir’s willingness to take a risk. We know it’s simply much easier to make bucks on a liquor store.”
According to the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, 10 liquor stores remain in the neighborhood of about 12,000 people, with many more nearby. The U.S. Census Bureau in 2011 counted 15 liquor stores per square mile in the neighborhoods north of downtown, nearly four times the average number for Santa Clara County.
Northside resident Michelle Albertson led a recent campaign to shut one down and turn it into a center for rescuing feral cats. She said the clustering of liquor stores in poorer neighborhoods promotes an “anything goes” atmosphere that includes public drunkenness, loitering, graffiti, drug dealing and prostitution.
“Many of these liquor stores are close to public schools,” she said. “When they wanted to reopen one near my house, I said, ‘Over my dead body!’ “
Sanghera was only 21 when the state revoked Guru’s license in 2009. In a sting operation months earlier, undercover lottery investigators handed decoy winning $1,000 tickets to clerks at several stores, including at his father’s on 13th Street. His father, Harduman Singh Sanghera, was among 10 retailers and clerks arrested for trying to cash in the tickets after telling the investigators posing as customers that they had not won. His father eventually pleaded no contest and was forced to divest himself of the family’s six liquor and food stores.
The obligation of managing them fell upon the son, who believes his father was singled out and treated harshly by the authorities and some anti-alcohol crusaders. He recalled the “racist” slurs against his father at one neighborhood forum. The Sangheras belong to the Sikh faith, whose men wear turbans and are often mistaken for Muslims.
“I don’t know another person who worked as hard as he did, who cared as much as he does about his family,” Sanghera said. “That whole thing was very, very difficult for me.”
A former basketball player at De Anza College with lean, hipster-cool looks, Sanghera was pursuing a career in modeling and acting when he shut down the faltering store on 13th Street. When a friend and workout partner, Alfred Resngit, suggested they open their own health club, Sanghera took him to the empty store. They had met during 6 a.m. workouts at a cross-fit club, where they gained experience teaching others after finishing their own workouts.
“It didn’t matter to me where it was,” Resngit said. “I just wanted it to be in San Jose.”
It is a spartan place. There are no electronic treadmills or step-climbers, swimming or whirlpools, or television monitors. It’s a big, single room with a rubber floor and lots of barbells, dumbbells and chin-up bars.
Juan Piceno, who lives four blocks away, suffers from a bad back and can’t do every exercise everybody else does in the one-hour classes.
“Ranbir gives me alternatives to work around my injuries,” he said. “Without them, I couldn’t keep up.”
San Jose Barbell uses a workout system known as “Training for Warriors.” It’s a variation of cross-fitness training but without an emphasis on team competition found at other clubs. Ranbir and his coaches place the most importance on personal motivation and taking individual responsibility for one’s health.
“It’s all about boosting self-esteem, and we do it through fitness,” Resngit said.
Every class begins with a didactic story, something like Aesop’s Fables. For one recent session, Sanghera told them about a naive, young lion who was belittled so badly by the other animals that he lost confidence in hunting for himself.
“Most of our restrictions are in our heads,” he told them. “Remember, one of the most important things is to be responsible. Eat like adults. It’s what you do day to day that matters most.”
Jamie Simpson, an English teacher at Sobrato High in Morgan Hill, uses Sanghera’s motivational fables to start classes.
“They’re not corny — they work!” she said. “My students like them.”
Since opening, San Jose Barbell’s membership has grown to about 100 members who pay $200 to $250 per month. That’s much more than the monthly fees charged by a handful of snazzy, corporate health clubs that have opened recently around downtown.
“They are too impersonal,” said Annie Lim, a training director at a local casino. “It’s hard to come up with your own workout routine at those places.”
As painful as the start was for him, Sanghera said taking over the family stores was a blessing in disguise.
“It turned out for the best because I got to open a health club,” he said, adding that his father is proud of him for the change at the store. “He loved it. He’s always been supportive of what we wanted to do.”
Meanwhile, the neighborhood likes what it sees — monthly contributions from San Jose Barbell to local groups, including a veterans program and San Jose High School athletics. They also give Sanghera credit for sprucing up the family stores since taking over.
Neighborhood leader Albertson said, “It’s a happy ending.”
Contact Joe Rodriguez at jrodriguez@mercurynews.com or 408-920-5767. Twitter.com/JoeRodMercury.
