A Readville convenience store that had its liquor license suspended last year for selling to minors is in trouble again after a Curry College police officer picking up some sandwiches noticed a Curry sticker on the SUV of a young guy loading up on cheap beer.
The Boston Licensing Board decides Thursday what to do about a Jan. 23 incident at Green Gardens Liquor and Deli, 35 W. Milton St., in which some underage Curry students borrowed a fellow student's Jeep for a packie run. Options range from warning the store to be more careful to suspending its license for several days to revoking it outright.
A policce officer at the Milton college told the board today he was at the store, about a mile from campus, around 6 p.m. to pick up some dinner for himself and fellow officers. He said that while waiting for his order, he noticed a young guy, whom he believed to be a Curry student, "purchasing a large quantity of alcohol" - so much he had to make multiple trips to his vehicle. He went outside, noticed a Curry parking sticker on the car and followed it back to campus. Apparently aware he was being tailed, the student didn't turn into the campus. However, the student was apparently unaware that campus police have radios, so about 10 minutes later, campus cops located the car on the other side of campus.
The officer said that among the items purchased were several packs of Pabst Blue Ribbon, Keystone Light and Miller beer, along with some Colt 45 malt liquor. While looking at the car, from which the students had fled, a student came out and confessed his role in the beer run - he'd been the driver, and gave up the name of the guy who actually bought the beer. A couple days later, that student, 19, turned himself into campus police - and handed over his older brother's New Hampshire ID, which he'd used to make the purchase.
A store worker said the kid looked like the photo on the ID, but that in response to the incident, the store now requires two forms of ID from anybody who appears to be under 30.
Not good enough, board Chairman Daniel Pokaski replied. No store should accept out-of-state ID, only Massachusetts licenses or IDs, US passports or miltary papers, he said. An out-of-state ID "doesn't hold you harmless" in such cases, he said, adding the worker should have been more inquisitive about the large purchase of cheap beer.
"These kids aren't stupid," he said, moving one hand as if it were talking. "There's talk and these kids know where to go because it's easy to get alcohol."
He warned the worker, whose family owns the store, that if this keeps up, "you're going to lose your business, your family is not going to have a business, you understand?"
