Culmore woman arrested for selling beer from her home
Fairfax County Police charged a 52-year-old woman with illegally selling alcohol from her apartment in the 3400 block of Glen Carlyn Drive in the Culmore area. Olivia Manuel Cruz was arrested on April 11 at about 4:30 p.m. She was caught after police received a tip from a member of the public. Police removed about 29 cases of Corona and Modelo beer from her home.
Selling alcohol without a sales license and from a private residence are not only against the law, it’s a zoning violation. It’s a class 1 misdemeanor and a conviction could mean a fine and/or jail time. “People need to be educated that it’s not lawful to do that,” says Fairfax County Police Department spokesperson Lucy Caldwell. “We hear sporadic reports of this going on.”
10 responses to “Culmore woman arrested for selling beer from her home”
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Another high quality person living amongst us………throw her in the trash bin and close the cover.
Culmore needs an entire sweep for code compliance. I am sure this is only the tip of the iceberg.
I can sympathize with a few folks needing some income to make ends meet. Many times these types of businesses are also related to illegal apartment restaurants. However, eliminating these activities is as much the responsibility of landlords as of the police. These are lease violations that any apartment manager should be able to recognize. It's a waste of police resources to conduct minor arrests of this type. So, how about putting some heat on the apartment owners?
i agree about it being the landlords fault as much of anyones. they turn a blind eye to everything in Culmore.
Why should the landlords care as long as they get their subsidies from uncle sam. There is not incentive for them to crack down on their tenants and the County does it give a crap either.
What an entrepreneurial spirit!
Fer real. I can't see the business case here. Does she have some sort of dirt cheap distributor hook-up to give her the margin here? Probably not. Does she charge a premium? Who'd pay a premium when they could go to 7-11? Maybe she sells to people who couldn't get it otherwise; illegals? I still can't believe they'd have trouble getting beer. Minors I guess?
Or maybe this is all just a philanthropic thing, giving out cheap beer at a loss for people who just need a cervesa here and there.
I have heard of people doing this. Not so much to provide for illegals or underage but for after hours.
In the scheme of things this does not seem that serious but I guess it's the "broken window" effect. Catch people doing small crimes & they (one would hope) will not graduate to bigger ones. Does anyone really need beer after midnight though? There's a reason stores don't sell it in the wee hours of the morning.
Yes, all the pieces of crap that live in Culmore need beer after 12 midnight