Doheny to reopen keeping RCC hechsher

Here’s a bit of good news for anyone looking for kosher steak to grill on the Fourth of July: Doheny Glatt Kosher Meat Market may reopen within weeks.

Rabbi Yakov Vann, director of the Rabbinical Council of California’s (RCC) kosher services arm, said on June 18 that Doheny, a distributor and retailer of kosher animal products on Pico Boulevard, has been sold to an unnamed individual and will reopen under RCC supervision. 

Renovations are already under way at the Pico Boulevard outlet. On June 13, two workers were assembling brand-new stainless steel shelving units in the parking lot behind the store. A nearby dumpster was filled with chunks of asphalt; an employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said new pipes had been laid connecting the decades-old storefront with the sewage system. 

The market has been closed since late March, when a video was revealed in the media of the owner and workers bringing unidentified products into the store while the RCC’s kosher supervisor was absent. Within a week of those damning revelations, the store was sold to a local Orthodox businessman and philanthropist, Shlomo Rechnitz. 

In April, Rechnitz told the Journal that he had sold Doheny to David Kagan, the owner of Western Kosher, another local kosher meat retailer and distributor. That agreement fell apart after Kehilla Kosher, the local agency that supervises Kagan’s two existing retail locations, declined to co-certify the reopened Doheny with the RCC. 

While Kagan won’t have an ownership stake, he may still have a role in running Doheny, possibly as a consultant or contractor. Speaking to a reporter at Western Kosher’s retail location on Pico Boulevard on June 17, Kagan declined to comment, saying that he’d be willing to speak “when the i’s are dotted and the t’s are crossed.”

Vann declined to name the new owner or owners and said no specific date has been set for the reopening; however he estimated the store will likely reopen in the next two weeks. 

Vann said all parties have agreed that the RCC would certify the business when it does open. “That part we have shalom on,” Vann said.