Louie's May Face License Suspension

The owner of Louie’s Superette is likely to have his liquor license suspended following a Cambridge License Commission hearing yesterday, during which police charged that he sold alcohol to minors in February.

The commission will determine the length of the suspension this afternoon, but the attorney for Cheng-San Chen, the owner of Louie’s, said Chen was certain to face a temporary revocation.

“He should expect some sort of suspension,” said Lawrence W. Frisoli, Chen’s attorney, after the hearing. “They have to suspend it.”

Chen yesterday did not contest police reports that he sold alcohol to four underage Harvard students without checking their IDs.

Although selling alcohol to minors is punishable by a fine or a jail term, Chen was not given jail time following criminal proceedings at the Cambridge District Court on Feb. 25.

Although the duration of the license suspension is still in question, if the commission rules his offense intentional, Chen faces up to six months without a license.

Chen said last month that he would close Louie’s, a popular convenience store near Mather House, if his liquor license were suspended. He said that alcohol sales account for 50 percent of Louie’s total revenue.

Frisoli recommended to the commission yesterday a suspension of between one and three days.

But commission Executive Officer Richard V. Scali, who laughed on hearing that suggestion, said he disagreed with Frisoli’s recommendation.

Chen is a second-time offender. He was caught selling alcohol to minors in December 1992 and received a one-day license suspension.

Although second-time offenders who prove that the violation was “unintentional” typically receive a one to three-day suspension, commission Chair Benjamin C. Barnes said he was not convinced that Chen’s violation was unintentional.

Barnes noted that Chen had been given a warning the night before the Feb. 4 violation after he was caught selling alcohol to minors by Cambridge Police Officer Agrait Collazo. Collazo said earlier in the hearing that he then caught Chen the next night—the night for which he is charged—engaging in underage sales.

“That was my big mistake,” said Chen, drawing laughter from the commission.

According to the police report filed that night, which was read aloud before the commission, the underage students exiting the store told Collazo that Chen had not checked for identification before selling them the alcohol.

According to the report, one of the students told Collazo, “That is why we come here. They don’t check IDs.”

Collazo told the commission that when Chen was first questioned by the police, he claimed that he had, in fact, checked the identification of the underage students.

Collazo said Chen later retracted that statement, saying he had simply forgotten to check IDs and that he had been busy paying his bills while overseeing the sale.

“What [Chen] did was inadvertent,” Frisoli told the commission. “He just forgot. Regardless of the suspension, he won’t be back here. He now checks everyone’s ID—even 70-year-olds.”

Frisoli said after the hearing that the commission “has broad discretion” in deciding a penalty today.

“If they close him down, Harvard students will have to take a taxi cab to get liquor,” Frisoli said after the hearing.

—Staff writer Robin M. Peguero can be reached at peguero@fas.harvard.edu