State says Allston market ran a small slots parlor on the side; wants to seize the money police found there in a raid

The state Attorney General's office yesterday filed for permission to confiscate $182,189.11 it says Boston Police found in a May raid of the Harvard Convenience Store and what police described as its illegal three-machine slots parlor at Brighton Avenue at Harvard Avenue.

Police say they uncovered a gaming room behind a closed door next to the store cash register around 12:30 a.m. on May 31, as part of an investigation into 911 calls about minors drinking and gambling inside the store in one of Allston's most prominent locations, according to the AG's forfeiture filing in Suffolk Superior Court.

According to a police report, police found no children behind a closed door next to the store cash register, but did find a number of men, drinking beers and three of them playing video slot machines - one of whom quickly pulled a voucher representing his winnings out of the machine as officers walked in. Police say that in addition to the beers the men in the room were holding, they found about two dozen empty or partially consumed bottles of Corona and Modelo.

They add they did not have to bust down any doors; the store manager, whose wife owns the store, opened the door to the room for them when they arrived and told him why they were there.

Later in the day, armed with a search warrant, police also found the more than $182,000 in what they said were receipts from the illegal machines, inside the machines themselves, two safes and the store cash register - which police said they could ID as having come from the slot machines because they were stored with vouchers from the machines.

According to police, the machines accepted bets by way of paper money, in denominations of up to $100 a bet. Winning bets would generate a voucher, which a player could then redeem for actual cash.

Police did not charge anybody with a criminal offense, but issued a licensing citation for the store, which won a city license in December to sell beer and wine. The Boston Licensing Board has yet to schedule a hearing on the citation.

The state is seeking the money under its civil forfeiture law related to the proceeds of illegal gaming, because slot machines are illegal except at state-sanctioned casinos, and as the state notes in its filing, "the store is not licensed by the Massachusetts Gaming Commission to operate a gaming enterprise with slot machines on the premises."

Complete complaint (1.3M PDF).