Liquor Store

In a series of decisions last week, the Howard County Alcoholic Beverage Hearing Board refused to grant a liquor license for a proposed liquor store in the Deep Run community near Columbia, but approved one for a restaurant in Oakland Mills.In a third decision, the board fined operators of Ellicott City's Millwood Tavern, in the 3700 block Old Columbia Pike, $300 for allowing employees to drink on the premises after closing the night of Jan. 10.The board denied a license for a liquor store proposed for the 6500 block Old Waterloo Road off Route 108. Protesters, including competitors in the area, had complained that another liquor store in the Lark Brown shopping center isn't needed, especially since existing stores are doing poorly.

About a dozen would-be patrons of Jim Parker's Pub stopped by the Northwest Baltimore liquor store yesterday to buy their favorite beverage. What they got instead was news that it had closed.The store, at the corner of Liberty Heights Avenue and Garrison Boulevard for 35 years, shut its doors Sunday night. Owner Jim Parker, who played for the former Baltimore Colts and is in the NFL Hall of Fame, said health concerns led to the decision to close the business that had become an institution.

In 1957, when he was drafted by the Baltimore Colts, Jim Parker was one of the country's most sought-after football players. He lived up to the hype, earning All-Pro honors eight consecutive seasons and getting inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility.He was on the 1958 team that brought the Colts what was then the league's most-coveted prize: the NFL championship.At 6-foot-3, 275 pounds, he was agile for a big guy.But just as the Liberty-Garrison neighborhood where he ran a liquor store for 35 years has lost some of its vitality, so has the man nicknamed "Unitas' Protector" for the pass protection he provided quarterback Johnny Unitas.

In a move that has angered many residents, the Howard County liquor board has granted a license to the owners of what will be the first liquor store in the tiny community of Fulton.This month, the liquor board -- composed of the County Council members -- approved a beer and wine license for Fulton Wine and Spirits, which will be in Fulton Station, east of Pindel School Road on Scaggsville Road.The decision has been met with disapproval by many residents, who worry that a liquor store would bring crime, vandalism and congestion to the area.

A Westminster man was sentenced to 6 1/2 years in prison in Carroll County Circuit Court yesterday after pleading guilty to robbing a Union Bridge liquor store last year.In the plea arrangement, Kane A. Magruder, 23, of the first block of Church St. was sentenced to 12 years, but Judge William M. Cave suspended all but 6 1/2 years and granted Magruder credit for time served, dating to Jan. 14.All other charges, including one count of armed robbery, were dropped.When released, Magruder will serve four years' probation and must pay $3,000 in restitution to Joseph H. Kreimer, owner of Esquire Liquors on West Broadway.

A 14-year-old boy was arrested on burglary and related charges yesterday after police responded to an alarm at a New Windsor liquor store, authorities said.The boy, who was not named because of his age, was turned over to juvenile authorities on charges of first- and second-degree burglary, theft, malicious destruction and resisting arrest, state police said.Alerted by an alarm company, troopers went to a liquor store in the 100 block of Church St. at 2: 18 a.m. A neighbor told police a suspect was inside the business.

The city's liquor board decided after a four-hour hearing yesterday to renew the liquor license of Pimlico Discount Liquors at 5142 Pimlico Road despite the owner's guilty pleas this year to charges of possession of drug paraphernalia and selling alcohol to minors.Phillip Minn, who has owned the store since 1989, was fined $500 for possessing drug paraphernalia this year.Stephen George, a Park Heights resident, protested against renewal of the store's license, but he was outnumbered at the hearing by two dozen residents supporting Minn.

After 30 years in the Wilde Lake Village Center, Ridings Village Liquors will close by the end of April.Columbia Management Inc. (CMI), a division of the Rouse Co. which manages Columbia's 10 village centers, says it is negotiating with at least two other liquor stores to move into the village center off Twin Rivers Road.The liquor store is one of the original businesses in Columbia's first village center, which still features the original village center design, built around an enclosed mall.

A Littlestown, Pa., man pleaded guilty yesterday in Carroll County Circuit Court to charges of robbing a liquor store and shooting at the owner.Nicholas D. Reese, 18, will be sentenced Aug. 25, court records show.Prosecutors said Reese and a 14-year-old co-defendant used a .20-gauge shotgun to rob Penn-Mar Liquors on Francis Scott Key Highway near the Pennsylvania line May 7, 1997.After taking a small amount of money, the bandits ran across a field to their getaway vehicle, parked on Ruggles Road.

WHEN ANNE ARUNDEL county and Annapolis police sent an 18-year-old volunteer to buy beer in 15 Annapolis area liquor stores two weekends ago, they suspected that several of the stores would illegally sell liquor to him.However, they were "incredibly surprised," according to Officer O'Brien Atkinson, when all 15 establishments allegedly sold beer to Michael Roomian of Edgewater without asking for identification.Liquor Board Chairman Richard Bittner said the results of that operation, part of a countywide offensive against underage drinking, were unprecedented in his seven years on the panel.

Chris Amos always had a routine when he closed up at night. To make sure there was no one lurking outside the liquor store in Fullerton's Putty Hill Plaza Shopping Center, Amos would leave first, check the parking lot, and wait for his boss to walk out of the building and get into his car safely. "I wouldn't leave until he did," said Amos, 28, who had worked at the store for eight years. But on Thursday, his boss, Joon Am Kang, was alone in Putty Hill Liquors when two men wearing stockings as masks burst in about 9 p.m. and demanded money, police said.

Clubs, store penalized for underage drinking The city liquor board penalized three strip clubs Thursday on The Block for underage drinking and indefinitely suspended the license of a West Baltimore liquor store for repeatedly selling alcohol to minors. Mouse Trap II, at 406 E. Baltimore St., and Plaza Saloon, at 404 E. Baltimore St., were both fined $3,000, while Circus Bar, at 427 E. Baltimore St., was fined $500. Liquor board commissioners also ordered the owner of Wonderland Discount Liquors, in the 2000 block of Pennsylvania Ave., to sell its liquor license within six months.

On Aug. 18 at 4:30 p.m., Chang K. Yim rolled down the two corrugated metal doors to his liquor store on North Avenue and secured each with locks. Doing the work himself and a half-hour before deadline, he avoided the spectacle of his store being padlocked by a police commander with television cameras rolling. This was the first test of police enforcing the city padlock ordinance that allowed Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III to keep Linden Bar and Liquors in Reservoir Hill closed for up to a year.

The face of the mayor looks down from a wall of Kay's Liquor store at Biddle and Milton, on a poster promoting a "neighborhood conversation," an opportunity to "join us to discuss ideas and solutions for tackling Baltimore City's vacant and abandoned properties." Michelle Ha, the owner, promotes activities like this. She urges her customers to go, to listen, to contribute, to make this city, her city, a better place. She not only planned to attend Wednesday's meeting, she spent the previous day at City Hall volunteering to help organize the event.

In the 55 hours between the apparently random fatal stabbing of a woman at a Catonsville liquor store and the arrest of the man Baltimore County police charged with the killing, the suspect had an unusual run-in with police in Pennsylvania. David A. Briggs, 23, was found naked Sunday night in the empty chapel of a homeless shelter in the Pittsburgh area. Police used a stun gun to subdue Briggs before taking him to a local hospital, where he was sedated and later picked up by his father, a sergeant with the Washington, Pa., Police Department said yesterday.

Fingerprints left at a Catonsville liquor store where a woman was fatally stabbed Saturday afternoon led police to the nearby home of a 23-year-old man whose only prior criminal conviction was for burglarizing a house with some friends. David Aaron Briggs was arrested late Monday night and charged with first-degree murder in an attack that appears to have been completely random. "Right now, we have no motive," Cpl. Mike Hill, a Baltimore County police spokesman, told reporters yesterday.

Baltimore County police yesterday said they do not know why an unknown man walked up behind a woman in line at a Catonsville liquor store and slit her throat in a fatal attack Saturday afternoon. The victim was identified as Aysha Dawn Ring, 24, of the first block of Chadnor Court, which is in a town house development west of Security Square Mall. About 4 p.m., Ring was waiting at the cash register inside Charing Cross Liquors, in the 5200 block of Baltimore National Pike, when a man approached her from behind, police said.

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.

The North Avenue liquor store where a man was fatally shot last month and that police say is a hub for drug dealers was ordered yesterday to close by Baltimore police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III. Linden Bar and Liquors was found to be in violation of the city's public nuisance law because of criminal activity in and around the store and must close at 5 p.m. Monday and remain closed for one year, police spokesman Sterling Clifford said....

Baltimore Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III is expected to decide by Aug. 22 whether a North Avenue liquor store that authorities say is a haven for violence and drug dealing will be closed for a year. Police officials held an administrative hearing yesterday for Linden Bar and Liquors, which was notified last month that it might be closed under the city's new public nuisance law because of criminal activity in and around the store. During the hearing, police submitted into evidence nine incidents of violence and drug activity at the store, highlighting a July killing inside Linden Liquors that was recorded by the store's security camera.