Saugus selectmen deny liquor license for convenience store

SAUGUS-Selectmen took their cue from residents Tuesday, declining to issue a beer and wine license to a Cliftondale convenience store.Saugus Town Food Mart, 40 Lincoln Ave., applied to the board for a license to sell beer and wine. The town has six such licenses and approved one for the White Hen Pantry, also a Lincoln Avenue convenience store, in October. While the state’s Alcohol Beverage Control Commission nixed the permit for reasons of its own, the public outcry against the board for approving it was fast and forceful.It was no less Tuesday.While Attorney Eric Jarosz argued that his client was filling a niche in town because they planned to carry only Asian beer and wine, the board disagreed.Selectman Michael Kelleher was the only board member to speak directly against the license when he asked Jarosz how he could reconcile putting alcohol in a place frequented by kids.”Convenience stores have a high rate of theft,” he added.Jarosz said he felt Kelleher was asking him to solve a bigger problem: keeping alcohol out of the hands of minors.”I think you’re asking a social question,” he said. “I don’t have a solution to theft in grocery stores. Minors can steal alcohol from their own refrigerators.”Serino Way resident Dennis Gould said he thought Jarosz’s argument for convenience was weak.”I’m a beer drinker and my wife will guarantee to you that I can find beer just fine,” he said. “I don’t think we need any more places.”Great Woods Road residents Richard and Teri Chung said they opposed the license because they felt it undermined everything Saugus Speaks Out was trying to do in regards to educating the public on the dangers of alcohol and substance abuse.”We should back them up and support their efforts,” said Teri Chung.Town Meeting member Al DiNardo said he feels keeping beer and wine in the traditional package stores is an added line of defense.But Police Lt. Stephen Sweezey may have had the defining reason for the board’s vote when he reminded members that there were three churches a mere stones throw from the store. The town’s bylaws require approval from any houses of worship that are within 500 yards of an establishment seeking liquor license.A letter to the board, Rev. Robert Leroe, head of the Clergy Council, said the council did not support the license.The board denied the request 5-0.