who allegedly patronised the Enterprise Grocery Ltd., will return with its reopening.

An application for a liquor licence was turned down by the Liquor Licencing Authority on Friday.

The Authority sided with objecting area residents and businesses in their belief that if alcohol is again available at the store, the "rummies'' might return and loiter around the building.

Authority chairman the Wor. Will Francis said the rummies had become a "serious nuisance'' to those in the area through littering, loitering, theft and damage to property.

"The objections are quite reasonable and it would be against the public's welfare to issue this licence,'' Mr. Francis said. "We have no alternative but to say the application is refused.'' The Police, nearby Grotto Bay Hotel and the Perfume Factory objected to the application. They said that tourists were often harassed by the rummies.

Several residents in the area also objected.

Liquor has been sold at the North Shore grocery store since it moved to its present site more than 40 years ago.

Burrows Lightbourn Ltd., a long-time liquor distributor to the store, bought the business 20 years ago, although the property and building are still owned by an estate.

The company brought in a succession of managers to run the store, the last of which, Mr. John Soares was knifed in the back during a robbery in 1990.

Poor sales and much harassment from the rummies led Mr. Soares to retire last year.

The area has been free of the rummies in the year since the store closed.

MarketPlace Supermarkets, which recently took over a 20-year lease with Burrows Lightbourn, argued the store itself is not causing any disturbance.

"The application for renewal should be reviewed in context of its new management,'' Mr. Michael Mello, the company's lawyer, said at the time. "It would be an unusually harsh and cruel punishment to force the business to suffer because of the acts of men.'' He said both the supermarket and Burrows Lightbourn had spent a great deal of money in renovations with the expectation that the licence would be renewed.

And he asked the Board to consider restricting the sale of single beers, miniatures and half-flasks.

Mr. John Carr, managing director of the MarketPlace said the company's lease called for it to be used as a grocery store with a liquor licence.

Yesterday, Mr. Francis said the Board had "no doubts whatsoever'' that the store's selling of alcoholic beverages, "caused these offensive and destructive individuals to meet and loiter in the immediate vicinity of its premises and thereby become a nuisance.'' Mr. Francis said the Board also found there was nothing in the evidence which would indicate a restriction in size or kind of bottles or containers sold at the store would prevent the rummies from returning.

After the ruling, Mr. Mello said the company would now have to decide what its next step would be.