Liquor Store

Martha Joan Cartier, a former Dundalk liquor store owner, died of heart failure Saturday at Genesis Eldercare in Severna Park. She was 87, and had been a longtime Dundalk resident before moving to her daughter's Pasadena home about three years ago. Mrs. Cartier owned the Dundalk Liquor Store, at Dundalk Avenue and Center Place. She operated it with her husband of 35 years, Joseph J. Cartier Jr., who died in 1969. She sold the business about 15 years ago. She also held a cosmetology license and assisted her sister, the late Clara Z. Miller, at Clara's Beauty Shop, adjacent to the liquor store.

The Sun's recent article on the use of zoning laws to limit liquor stores highlights a complex issue ("Zoning should be used to limit liquor stores, Hopkins study says," April 12). We support a community's right to decide for themselves what type of businesses and services are located in their neighborhoods, and we believe that alcohol licensing regulations should be enforced to deal with those who are not in compliance with the law. These are local issues that should be discussed and decided by all members of the community, including local hospitality businesses.

A group of Clarksville residents trying to block a liquor store from opening in the small shopping center near their upscale neighborhood is finding out just how difficult a task that can be. The residents' large detached homes are just off the east side of Route 108 across the road from the parish center building at St. Louis Roman Catholic Church. The main entry road for the decade-old, 70-home development called Clarks Glen North is Wake Forest Road, and the homes lining it look northward, directly facing the shopping center across a narrow strip of grass and mature pine trees.

Zoning laws have become a powerful way to reduce the number of liquor stores in cities, but too few government officials use them, Johns Hopkins University public health researchers said in a new report. Researchers from the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health have created a guide to advise governments of the regulatory power they have to combat alcohol abuse. They hope the report, published in the journal Preventing Chronic Disease, will bring more attention to the issue.

The owner of an Ellicott City liquor store whose license was opposed by area residents has been fined $250 for allowing a 20-year-old underage police volunteer to buy alcohol March 12. Police sent the youth into the St. John's Liquors at 9150 Baltimore National Pike, where he bought a four-pack of malt liquor after showing the clerk his driver's license showing him to be 20. The legal drinking age in Maryland is 21. Owner Matthew Park testified...

A third person has been arrested in connection with a November armed robbery in Aberdeen. Jerrard Christopher Wilmore, 21, who has addresses in the first block of Church Green Avenue in Aberdeen and the first block of Collins Drive in Perryville, was arrested Thursday. He is charged in the Nov. 12 robbery of Northside Liquors, in the 200 block of North Philadelphia Boulevard, with armed robbery, robbery, first- and second-degree assault, use of a handgun in commission of a felony and theft less than $1,000.

A half-hour before police were scheduled to close his North Avenue liquor store, Chang K. Yim reluctantly slid down a metal security curtain yesterday and padlocked it himself. "This is the only way I make a living," he shrugged. "For the time being, I'm jobless." Yim's Linden Bar and Liquors became the first business shuttered under the city's public nuisance law, which has been on the books for 15 years but was revised this year, in part because loopholes had made it difficult to enforce.

A Baltimore Circuit Court judge allowed Linden Bar and Liquors yesterday to remain open until a June 5 appeals hearing, a decision that reverses a ruling by the city liquor board last month. Judge Alfred Nance granted a stay on the final day the bar would have been allowed to sell alcohol. The liquor board revoked the license for the owner of the longtime corner establishment in the 900 block of W. North Ave. on April 17, noting an excessive amount of police activity outside the store.

Four men wearing ski masks robbed the Starting Gate Liquor Store on Route 198 in Laurel Monday evening, county police said yesterday.Investigators said the men walked into the store at 7:44 p.m. Three of them waved handguns and ordered the clerks to the floor. They grabbed an undisclosed amount of money from the cash register and fled toward Whiskey Bottom Road.

When is a neighborhood liquor store too convenient?When it's too close to the neighborhood, say some Elkridge residents who must live with a Howard County Liquor Board decision last week to allow the opening of a liquor store off Meadowridge Road near Interstate 95.The board voted 4-1 to give a license to Meadowridge Wine & Spirits over the objections of about two dozen neighborhood residents who showed up to oppose the liquor license at a Sept. 12 hearing."Legally, we didn't have anything on our side," conceded Norman Zundel, one of the opponents, who lives nearby off Mayfield Avenue.

Next week, the Baltimore City Council will consider the changes to the zoning code that will affect about 100 of the city's 1,300 existing liquor outlets. These outlets have been non-conforming for more than 40 years, and it's time for them to be closed. During the Planning Commission's hearings, two students from Patterson High School testified on why the number of liquor outlets needs to be reduced. One of the commissioners said their testimony moved him more than any of the others.

William R. Dachille Sr., a retired insurance executive who owned a Baltimore County liquor store, died Monday of heart failure at University of Maryland St. Joseph Medical Center. He was 88. William Robert Dachille Sr. was born and raised in Baltimore. He attended City College and enlisted in the Army in 1943. He was discharged the next year after the death of his father, and he returned to Baltimore. Mr. Dachille spent more than 40 years in the insurance business and during his career worked for Monumental Life, Chesapeake Life Insurance Co., Western Life Insurance and the St. Paul Companies Inc. He retired in the mid-1980s.

The Baltimore City Planning Commission approved legislation Thursday that would overhaul Baltimore's zoning code if passed by the City Council. The legislation, the first comprehensive zoning law to come to the City Council in 40 years, went through several drafts in recent years before it was introduced to the council in October. Even then, it was approved by the commission with dozens of amendments based on public input. The law is designed to make the city's zoning more comprehensible by including maps, diagrams and charts for quick consultation.

A third person has been arrested in connection with a November armed robbery in Aberdeen. Jerrard Christopher Wilmore, 21, who has addresses in the first block of Church Green Avenue in Aberdeen and the first block of Collins Drive in Perryville, was arrested Thursday. He is charged in the Nov. 12 robbery of Northside Liquors, in the 200 block of North Philadelphia Boulevard, with armed robbery, robbery, first- and second-degree assault, use of a handgun in commission of a felony and theft less than $1,000.

The identity of a 29-year-old man fatally stabbed Jan. 12 outside a liquor store was released Jan. 15. Police said Michael Anthony Price, who lived in the 600 block of McCabe Avenue, was pronounced dead at Johns Hopkins Hospital at 12:25 a.m. Jan. 13. A Baltimore police officer had found Price with apparent stab wounds to his torso and arm in the 5400 block of York Road and attempted to revive him until paramedics arrived. Police canvassed the area for a suspect and arrested Lonnie Murrill, 42, of the 500 block of E. 43 r d Street.

Baltimore City health officials are right to view the over-concentration of liquor stores in poor and predominantly African-American neighborhoods as a threat to public well-being. They point to academic research showing statistically significant increases in violent crime in communities with an overabundance of liquor stores, as well as a host of other ill effects such as domestic violence, lower life expectancy, cardiovascular disease and sexually transmitted infections. But they didn't need to examine the literature to learn that.

An undisclosed amount of cash was stolen from a Finksburg liquor store during the weekend, Maryland State Police said. An employee of Mann's Liquors in the 3100 block of Baltimore Blvd. discovered the burglary while opening the store about 8 a.m. Monday, police said. The store had been closed Sunday. Telephone lines were cut, disabling the alarm. The rear door was opened with a pry bar and hammer, police said. The burglary occurred after 1 p.m. Sunday, when the building was last checked.

A proposed zoning rule that would reduce the number of liquor outlets in Baltimore is garnering increased support among community members who believe it will make neighborhoods healthier and safer. The zoning change, part of the city's first zoning overhaul in 40 years, would force some retailers in residential areas to either alter what they sell or close their doors. That has prompted vocal opposition to the rule from the business owners, who say it's not fair and possibly illegal.

Activists, public officials and residents gathered Saturday outside an east Baltimore liquor store — where a man was severely beaten on Christmas Day — to protest violent attacks on gay people Baltimore Police Commissioner Anthony W. Batts told the crowd of about 40 people that his department plans to set up an advisory group to meet monthly to work with gay, lesbian and transgender people. "I want to come together as a community and make sure we connect and do the right things for every part of our community," said Batts, who became commissioner late last year.