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This week in history: Warren ‘booze joints’ raided in 1920

99 years ago in 1920

In a series of raids on alleged booze joints, local police jailed several sellers of raisin jack, whiskey and Jamaica ginger, among them a wholesaler who had a large quantity of Jamaica ginger on hand.

Before police started out on a watch for booze sellers, Jim Mantina and Joe E. Leone, two men arrested by federal officers in their raids a week prior, were arraigned before Mayor McBride on charges of violating city ordinance 1064.

ºMantina was fined $300 and costs, and Leone paid $200 and costs. It was Leone’s first offense.

James P. Riley was the first victim. He was nabbed by Captain Strock and Officer Salen on a charge of carrying liquor on his person. The biggest haul in liquor was made at the store of A. Whitman, at the corner of Main and Williams Street when Captain Strock and Officers Van Gorder and Durkin nabbed Whitman. They found a box and a basket containing more than 100 empty Jamaica ginger bottles and confiscated five full cases of the stuff.

50 years ago in 1969

A lone bandit, believed to be armed, staged a holdup five minutes before closing time at a Newton Falls Lawson Dairy Store at 100 E. Broad St. and made away with an undetermined amount of cash.

Police said the man walked into the store at 10:25 p.m., five minutes before the scheduled close.

He ordered lunch meat and as the clerk went to fill the order, he walked around the counter to the cash register.

The bandit, with his hand in his pocket, as it was carrying a gun, ordered the two clerks in the store, Mrs. Kathy Klemm and Mrs. Margaret Werschey, to be quiet.

Police said the robber removed all the bills from the register, leaving the change, and then ran out of the store into a waiting car.

25 years ago in 1994

Surprise and disappointment were the reactions of neighborhood residents to the closing of Riverside Market on North Park Avenue.

“No one knew it was closing,” Brenda Palmer, an Atlantic Street resident said of the only full-service supermarket within walking distance to downtown neighborhoods on the northeast side of Warren.

“It’s so sad because its prices were reasonable, and it was so close that I was not afraid to send my 9-year-old to the store,” she said.

Palmer, standing next to her young son, said she grew up going to the store.

“My mother used to send my sister and me to that grocery store, and we have been sending my children,” Palmer said. “It’s like it is a part of our history.”

Riverside was the last chain to operate a grocery store at the 1020 N. Park Ave. location. It was closed without notice — neighbors found the windows and doors boarded up.

The Warren store was independently operated by Robert Hockenberry. He and company officials were unavailable for comment.

10 years ago in 2009

Trumbull County Prosecutor Dennis Watkins remained confident that death row inmate Kevin Biros would be executed despite a court ruling that put continuing lethal injection protocol issues in front of a judge.

The ruling from U.S. District Court Judge Gregory I. Frost reserved the right to reconsider or lift the stay on Biros’ execution set for Dec. 8.

A Lorain court had suggested using one lethal drug to execute death row inmates in a then recent opinion.

“Whether it is one drug or three, we have to end the appeals and litigation. It’s torture on the victims. The state has to have a heart for the victims of the crime,” Watkins said.

Watkins called the situation ridiculous.

“Lethal injection has worked 32 of 33 times, but the protocol is questioned.”

— Compiled from Tribune Chronicle archives by Emily Earnhart

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