Liquor

A police-run sting of downtown, Bolton Hill and Mount Vernon bars and liquor stores netted 17 on charges of selling to underage buyers.Police community service officers Eric Pettus, 19, and Jill Blueford, 20, visited 23 liquor outlets Thursday and Friday for the city's Central Police District Vice Enforcement Unit."

The Howard County Alcoholic Beverages Hearing Board was scheduled to review liquor violations involving two area bars last night.M.D.'s Country Pub in the 3900 block of Ten Oaks Road in Glenelg was cited for several violations within a six-day span in November.A county police officer investigating a complaint at 3: 30 a.m. Nov. 15 saw two people enter the restaurant. The officer followed them and found six customers drinking alcohol.Establishments that sell liquor are prohibited from selling alcohol or allowing patrons to continue drinking after 2 a.m.Six days later, the same officer entered the bar about 2: 15 a.m. and saw three customers -- all under the legal drinking age of 21 -- consuming alcohol at the bar.This is the second time in three years that M.D.'s Country Pub has been accused of violating local liquor laws.

Leaving a 19-year-old in charge after closing proved expensive for the owners of the Johnny Star Rib Company restaurant in Ellicott City, who were fined $800 by Howard County's liquor board after the teen invited some friends over for a few hours of illegal drinking.The board also meted out fines of $700, $500 and $50 to the license holders of three other Howard County liquor outlets in decisions dated Dec. 1, including one at the county-owned Timbers of Troy Golf Course in the 6100 block Marshalee Drive in Elkridge.

Fifteen West Baltimore liquor outlets were cited yesterday for selling alcoholic beverages to an underage Police Department employee.Sgt. Jack Hergenroeder, head of the Western District's special projects and enforcement unit, said police took the action after citizens complained that some of the establishments were selling alcoholic beverages to people under 21, a liquor law violation.Carryouts, lounges and bars along West Baltimore Street, Edmondson Avenue, North Fulton Avenue and the intersection of Pennsylvania and North avenues were targeted, Hergenroeder said.

Clinton matter is farce that cannot compare with WatergateHow can anyone compare President Clinton's idiotic indiscretions or his lies about them to the criminal conspiracies of Richard Nixon, which threatened the subversion of the Republic?And why does the media (The Sun included) persist in calling the Clinton/Lewinsky spectacle a saga or drama? It is neither saga nor drama, but farce; a tawdry tale that once would have been confined to the prurient pages of Penthouse or the National Enquirer.

IN ITS picturesque 19th-century atmosphere, Bolton Hill feels like Baltimore's Georgetown, without the crowds.But there is one other significant difference: Unlike Georgetown, Bolton Hill continues to battle to achieve stability. That's why many residents are trying to get rid of Chang's Mart, a liquor and convenience store at Eutaw Place and Wilson Street.They don't like the store's clients who are so poor (or dependent on drink) that they buy liquor by the miniature bottle and beer by the container.

Almost one year after the Howard County Board of License Commissioners shut down a Jessup liquor store for selling beer to a minor, the board has granted another license for the same establishment.The ruling allows Joseph H. and Sook H. Chung to reopen Mel's Liquors in the 7900 block of Route 175.Paul H. Rappaport, an Ellicott City attorney who represented the couple, predicted that his clients would run a safe and lawful operation."When the store was sold to the previous owners, it sort of went downhill," said Rappaport, whose family in the 1950s originally owned the property.

Since the 1920s, Our Lady of Mount Carmel complex in Essex has symbolized academic excellence and community commitment, even as eastern Baltimore County slipped from thriving industrial center to a region with pockets of blight.Now, church officials and parents say they feel temptation is lurking at their door.Liquor and adult video stores near the Roman Catholic campus have sparked complaints, while a video emporium threatens to spoil the effect of a long-awaited $5 million streetscape along Eastern Boulevard.

A liberal guest policy and cheaper rates at Fort Meade's bowling center add up to unfair competition, according to the president of an Odenton bowling alley.And some Odenton liquor store owners say the taxes not charged on beer, wine and liquor sales on the military base hurt their business.Jacob Davis, president of Greenway Bowl Inc. in Odenton, says the bowling center on Fort Meade has attracted local leagues by bending the rules on guests.He has started a letter-writing battle with officials in the Army's community and family support organizations over exactly what Army regulations allow.

An article in Tuesday's edition should have said that a budget increase sought by the Carroll County liquor board would be used to pay liquor inspectors to work additional hours.The Sun regrets the error.Pub Date: 3/19/97

The sale of one beer to a 19-year-old police cadet cost the owners of Houlihan's restaurant in Columbia a $450 fine for serving a minor and cost the server his job, while a North Laurel liquor store was fined $500 for a sale to the same cadet on the same night. A third Howard County license holder was fined $400 by the county's Alcoholic Beverage Hearing Board for administrative rule violations. The cadet made her rounds Jan. 6, and bought a beer without showing any identification at Houlihan's, management agreed in a stipulation at the May 19 hearing.

The corner of East Baltimore's Milton Avenue and Biddle Street has two liquor stores, a convenience store, a church, blowing trash, a police surveillance camera, kids peddling drugs and idle men worn from age and disability catching up with old friends and old times. Today, it is to have turkeys. Six of them, to be exact. And four hams. And plenty of other food set up on donated tables in front of one of those nondescript corner shops that sells malt liquor in 40-ounce to-go cans and seems to proliferate in impoverished neighborhoods, as common as boarded-up rowhouses and vacant lots.

The Belvedere in historic Mount Vernon boasts a 40-foot-long mahogany bar where the likes of Theodore Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, the Duke of Windsor and Clark Gable sidled up for a drink. The Suite Ultralounge Nightclub is in the basement of the Belvedere and boasts being "the only upscale venue in Baltimore where you can bring your own bottle of top shelf." Its Web site promo wants you to "swagger like us" and "come get your party on." One does not seem to go with the other. Early Saturday, loud music gave way to gunfire on East Chase Street in front of the Belvedere, leaving two people wounded by bullets, a third person stabbed and a bartender using a towel to try and stop the flow of blood.

For weeks, police have been trying to use the city's public nuisance law to shut down Linden Bar and Liquors, a West Baltimore packaged goods store that has been the target of frequent complaints about drug dealing on the premises and was the scene of a recent fatal shooting. The difficulties authorities have had trying to padlock an establishment that has seen a rash of violent incidents over that past 24 months suggests the nuisance law is at best a very cumbersome tool. Small liquor stores, which often dominate corners in the city's poorest, most distressed neighborhoods, are magnets for trouble, from vagrancy and loitering to drug dealing and violent assaults.

The city liquor board will not renew the license for the owner of Linden Bar and Liquors, a long-time corner establishment in the 900 block of W. North Ave. that police say is the scene of nightly drug activity and violence. Residents of nearby Reservoir Hill flooded the hearing at City Hall yesterday and were relieved at the board's decision. But the attorney for Chang K. Yim, who has owned the liquor store since 2003, argued that his client could be a victim of gentrification, and that Kim has tried to appease neighborhood fears by installing lights outside the store and fixing video cameras inside the building.

Owners of three Howard County liquor stores were fined for not asking for identification and serving underage patrons sent by police to test them. All three admitted the infractions, which took place last year, in cases decided Feb. 21. Michael Platt and Richard Brunatti, owners of Your Wine and Spirits Shoppe on Birmingham Way in Woodstock, were fined $1,000 by the Howard County Alcoholic Beverage Hearing Board because of an incident Sept. 27 during which a clerk sold a six-pack of Smirnoff Ice to an underage female volunteer.

Lawmakers considered yesterday a bill that would allow for direct shipments of wine to state residents, an issue that has pitted wine aficionados against liquor store owners for several years in the General Assembly. Wineries and wine lovers say the current prohibition on direct-to-consumer shipments is outmoded and prevents residents from joining "wine of the month" clubs and from asking a winery in Napa Valley or elsewhere to ship home a favorite bottle. (They also note that increased airline security prevents passengers from carrying bottles on planes, making shipping necessary.

NATIONAL Democrats focus on retention When newly elected Democratic members of Congress showed up here last month, they were taken on the traditional round of orientation. But about 12 were singled out for a special type of orientation that has continued through this month. It is the incumbent retention program, a detailed plan worked out after Democrats swept Congress. pg 4A Lodged bullet as evidence In the middle of Joshua Bush's forehead, 2 inches above his eyes, lies the evidence that prosecutors say could send the teenager to prison for attempted murder: a 9 mm bullet, lodged just under the skin.

The owners of two Howard County liquor stores were each fined $250 for serving underage customers sent into their stores in March by county police. Anita and Prem Bansal, who own Absolutely Wine and Spirits in Wilde Lake, and Winfield Kelly III, licensee for Woodbine Wine and Spirits on Lisbon Center Drive, Woodbine, were fined by the county Alcoholic Beverage Hearing Board. Detective Martin Johnson sent an 18-year-old into the Wilde Lake store March 20. An employee and a security guard looked at a driver's license but sold the teen alcohol.

A popular Columbia hamburger restaurant drew a $2,500 fine and had its liquor license suspended for three days last week for allowing a 16-year-old clerk to sell beer to a 17-year-old girl working for Howard County police. In a second case, a Columbia liquor store was ordered to pay a $500 fine for a similar offense. Robert Dodson, licensee of Fuddruckers in the 6400 block Dobbin Center Way, got the stiff penalty for an incident that occurred Nov. 9, when the girl entered, ordered a single beer, and showed her correct driver's license to the cashier.