Board orders ten-day alcohol-sales suspension for Allston market for running a not-so-secret slots parlor with beer service

The Boston Licensing Board today ordered a ten-day halt to alcohol sales at the Harvard Convenience Store, Brighton Avenue at Harvard Avenue because of a BPD raid in May that found a room with three slots machines and gamblers quaffing beers from the store's stock.

The board also decided to schedule a hearing on the "character and fitness" of the store's owner and manager, Grishma Patel of Allston, to be allowed to continue selling beer and wine in the future because of the incident.

"I have serious questions about them carrying on (as a licensee) at all," board member Liam Curran said.

This was the market's first licensing violation since it got a beer-and-wine license in November. The board would normally respond to a first violation with a simple warning letter, but board Chairwoman Kathleen Joyce said the violation was so egregious it demanded immediate and swift action by the board; in fact, she said the fact the raid happened so soon after the market got its license suggests the owner intended to open a gambling den as part of a business strategy, and that's just wrong.

"It's not a little thing, it seems to be a very deliberate act," she said, adding the gambling micro-hall seemed to be well known among slots aficionados in the area.

Boston Police raided the market on May 31 and found ten men inside a small room with the three slot machines - and two dozen empty or partially consumed bottles of Corona and Modelo.

At a hearing on Tuesday, a market manager repeatedly pleaded the Fifth in response to questions about what was going on, citing the possibility of criminal charges by the state Attorney General's office, which is investigating the events leading to the raid.

On Sept. 9, the state moved to confiscate the $182,189.11 it says Boston Police seized in the May raid, as the possible result of illegal activities in the room.

On Sept. 19, Suffolk Superior Court Judge Rosemary Connolly allowed the state to continue to hold onto the money pending any other possible court actions, but then stayed that order on Oct. 11 to await possible criminal charges by the state.