Visitors to Joseph Chahayed’s Southern California gas station sometimes place their palms on the glass windows, trying to channel good vibes. Other times they ask for a hug or a selfie.
“I don’t know how many hundreds of people have tried to take pictures with me,” Mr. Chahayed said as he served a procession of customers buying lottery tickets on Thursday.
Mr. Chahayed is the owner of what some might call the luckiest gas station in America. Three years ago, the largest lottery jackpot in American history — $2.04 billion — was sold here at Joe’s Service Center. Mr. Chahayed received $1 million for selling the Powerball ticket.
But two years later came even greater good fortune for his station, amid even greater tragedy for his city.
Joe’s Service Center sits on the busy corner of Fair Oaks Avenue and Woodbury Road in Altadena. When he arrived at work on the morning of Jan. 8, black smoke blanketed the station, so thick he could see neither sky nor sun. The Eaton fire, one of the most destructive wildfires in California history, was bearing down on his business, his little patch of the American dream he had built since arriving as an immigrant from Syria 45 years ago. Mr. Chahayed said he prayed outside, next to the gas pumps, as neighbors ran to him, some of them in their pajamas and slippers. Sheriff’s deputies all but ordered him to leave.
The Eaton fire burned more than 100 homes on Fair Oaks Avenue alone. But it stopped a few lots north of Mr. Chahayed’s gas station.
Since then, the word is out among lottery aficionados that the station carries some ineffable magic. And with the Powerball lottery possibly headed for another record — the jackpot is $1.7 billion and growing, with the next drawing on Saturday night — the line to buy tickets at Joe’s Service Center is often dozens of people long, snaking out to the sidewalk.
Mr. Chahayed presides from behind the counter in his cramped store, a riot of colorful lottery signs in English and Spanish, of shelves of energy drinks, motor oil, junk food and a plastic bowl with a bunch of bananas. The printer spitting out lottery tickets offers a soundtrack.
On Thursday morning, Paolo Mejia, an interior decorator, opened the glass door to the shop. As a wave of air-conditioned air swept over him, he pulled out a white envelope bulging with cash.
“Are you ready?” Mr. Mejia asked as he dumped $1,000 in 50s and 20s onto the counter. He had traveled 40 minutes to buy 500 tickets from Mr. Chahayed on behalf of friends who are operating-room nurses in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Panorama City.
That’s how it goes at Joe’s when the jackpot hits 10 digits: In a part of the world where long-lost friends balk at seeing each other if it means sitting in traffic on the freeway, people drop everything to brave rush hour for the slim chance of picking a winner from a man who knows a little something about chance, and fate.
Lottery buyers have come from Arizona and from across Southern California, Mr. Chahayed says.
A Japanese television news reporter once asked him whether they could touch hands so that she might channel some of his “power.” According to Mr. Chahayed, the news station offered to fly him to Japan. He declined.
Mr. Chahayed, 77, came to the United States in 1980 and took a job cooking Middle Eastern food at a diner. After he received that $1 million bonus for selling the winning Powerball ticket, he distributed it to his 11 grandchildren, placing the money in college savings accounts.
He says he is amused when people touch the windows for good luck.
“It’s not a shrine,” he said. “It’s a business.”
But he always seems to have a joke chambered.
“You want the winning ticket or the regular one?” he said to one of his loyal customers on Thursday. Some regulars call him Papa Joe.
After the horrors of January — not far from the gas station, where houses once stood, there are just dirt lots now — Altadena residents say coming to Mr. Chahayed’s station is a salve, a chance for good humor and camaraderie, and an opportunity to test their luck.
“He could be having a bad day and you would never know — he’s the sweetest person,” said Angie Jackson, a retired municipal employee in neighboring Pasadena who comes to the gas station for lottery tickets and “just a little conversation in the morning.”
“People call it the lucky store,” said Ms. Jackson, whose house survived the Eaton fire but suffered $65,000 worth of smoke damage.
Mr. Chahayed says his customers come from all walks of life — he named attorneys, doctors, nurses, construction workers.
Louis Constantino, 51, a mortgage banker, pulled into the station on Thursday in a white BMW S.U.V. He bought 10 tickets for himself and for a group of friends who are financial advisers. “You would think that they would know better,” he chuckled, “that they would know the probabilities.”
If they won, Mr. Constantino said, “at least we will manage the money well.”
Mr. Constantino said he and his friends only play when the winnings are huge.
More dedicated is True Granillo, 60, who drove 45 minutes to buy 10 tickets.
“Where does all my money go?” she said. “Food and the lottery.” She bought her tickets at Joe’s because she’s hoping that Powerball lightning will strike twice.
Her plans for the winnings? “I don’t want a big house and cars. I want to get the money so that I can give it away.”
Thomas Fuller, a Page One Correspondent for The Times, writes and rewrites stories for the front page.
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