An 18-year-old driver with no license is facing charges after police say he lost control of his SUV while doing doughnuts in a nearby parking lot and slammed into Austin Liquors on Gold Star Boulevard in Worcester around 1 a.m. Tuesday. The crash left the storefront indented, the windows shattered, and bottles of vodka smashed across the floor near the register.
Worcester police identified the driver as Isaac Harrington and said he is being charged with operating without a license and wanton destruction of property, according to a police spokesperson cited by the Worcester Telegram. Police said Harrington lost control of the vehicle after doing doughnuts in the parking lot of the Price Rite Marketplace plaza before crashing into the store.
Co-Owner Describes Scene of Shattered Bottles and Broken Glass
Austin Liquors co-owner Raj Patel said he arrived at the store at 2:30 a.m. to find the front indented and the windows shattered. He said he found broken liquor bottles scattered on the ground near the front register, and a photograph from the aftermath showed shattered bottles of Grey Goose, Smirnoff and Tito's vodka among the wreckage.
Patel said surveillance footage showed two people inside the SUV at the time of the crash, and that they tried to back the vehicle away from the store but could not move it. He said the vehicle appeared too damaged to be drivable, and that police cars showed up as the two occupants climbed out. Worcester police said the SUV was towed from the scene and that the people inside refused medical treatment.
Store Reopened Despite the Damage
Business continued as usual the following morning, though glass was still missing from the front of the store, the same report noted. Patel said the total damage from the crash had not yet been assessed. He said the timing made the incident especially tough to absorb, with Thanksgiving just two weeks away.
Patel, who said he bought a share of Austin Liquors only a few months earlier, joked that the store had gotten a drive-thru service. Austin Liquors has operated at the Gold Star Boulevard location for 80 years, with its current majority owner taking over about a decade ago, according to Telegram & Gazette.
The crash is not the only recent collision to hit a business along that stretch. A Honda Civic drove into the Honey Dew Donuts location on Gold Star Boulevard just before 11 p.m. on a Thursday night, splitting the car in two, according to CBS Boston; that store was closed at the time, and the driver was taken to a hospital.
Massachusetts law addresses wanton destruction of property with penalties that include a fine described in state statute as “$1,000 or 3 times the value,” according to the Massachusetts General Court, which also references potential imprisonment of not more than two and a half years in a preceding clause of the same statute. It remains unclear how that law would apply to Harrington's case.
