Fran's Lunch, Inc. v. Alcoholic Beverages Control Com'n

• Decision Date: 22 October 1998
• Docket Number: No. 97-P-0703,97-P-0703
• Citation: 700 N.E.2d 843,45 Mass.App.Ct. 663
• Parties: FRAN'S LUNCH, INC. v. ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES CONTROL COMMISSION.
• Court: Appeals Court of Massachusetts

Page 843

700 N.E.2d 843

45 Mass.App.Ct. 663

FRAN'S LUNCH, INC. v. ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES CONTROL COMMISSION.

No. 97-P-0703.

Appeals Court of Massachusetts Essex.

Argued Sept. 14, 1998.

Decided Oct. 22, 1998.

Patricia S. Johnstone, Gloucester, for plaintiff.

Kathryn B. Palmer, Assistant Attorney General, for the defendant.

Before PORADA, GILLERMAN and BECK, JJ.

PORADA, Justice.

The plaintiff sought judicial review in the Superior Court of the suspension of its liquor license by the Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission (commission). The commission suspended the plaintiff's license based on evidence garnered in a "sting" operation in which the plaintiff's employee sold liquor to a minor, acting as an agent for the commission and the Gloucester police department, without requiring the minor to produce proof of his age in violation of G.L. c. 138, § 34. The plaintiff claims that the decision must be set aside because, in collecting this evidence, the commission violated G.L. c. 138, § 34A, which prohibits a minor from purchasing liquor either for his own use or for the use of any other person. Relying on Cremins v. Clancy, 415 Mass. 289, 295, 612 N.E.2d 1183 (1993), a Superior Court judge ruled that the commission had not violated the law because properly construed, G.L. c. 138, § 34A, prohibits the purchase of alcohol by minors for their consumption or the consumption of others, and here the alcohol was not purchased for consumption but for use as evidence to enforce the law. We affirm but on different grounds.

At issue in Cremins v. Clancy, 415 Mass. at 295, 612 N.E.2d 1183, was the civil liability of a minor to an innocent third party for injuries resulting when the minor, in his capacity as a social host, allowed another minor to consume alcohol and become intoxicated, the consequences of which was injury to the third person. In rejecting the plaintiff's claim in that case, that he was entitled to an instruction which made a violation of the law prohibiting the furnishing of alcohol by a minor to others negligence per se, the Supreme Judicial Court made reference to G.L. c. 138, § 34A, which the court said "makes it a criminal offense for anyone under the age of twenty-one to procure an alcoholic beverage, for his own or for another minor's consumption." Ibid. However, we believe this reference to § 34A in the Cremins case was intended by the Supreme Judicial Court merely to identify the criminal statute on which the plaintiff based his request for an instruction and was not intended to define or limit the parameters of those circumstances giving rise to a violation under this statute. Cf. Planned Parenthood League of Mass., Inc. v. Attorney Gen., 424 Mass. 586, 594 n. 8, 677 N.E.2d 101 (1997).

"As a general rule, 'a statute must be interpreted according to the intent of the Legislature ascertained from all its words construed by the ordinary and approved usage of the language, considered in connection with the cause of its enactment, the mischief or imperfection to be remedied and the main object to be accomplished, to the end that the purpose of its framers may be effectuated.' " Yeretsky v. Attleboro, 424 Mass. 315, 319, 676 N.E.2d 1118 (1997) (citations omitted). Here, it would appear that the purpose of the statute to protect the welfare of children from the danger of alcohol, see Tobin v. Norwood Country Club, Inc., 422 Mass. 126, 133-134, 661 N.E.2d 627 (1996), and the plain language of the statute which prohibits the purchase for the minor's "use or use of any other person" gives rise to an interpretation calling for a blanket prohibition on the purchase of alcohol by a minor for himself or any other person for any purpose regardless of...