HUDSON – Most convenience stores wouldn’t dare consider cutting their fiscal lifeline by stopping the sale of alcohol, cigarettes and lottery tickets.

But the store at Haffner’s busy Lowell Street gas station has done just that: eliminating those so-called vices and instead making fuel its primary profit maker.

After a clerk sold alcohol to minors at least four times and management became frustrated with state lottery demands, a Haffner’s manager said the business decided it was easier to stop stocking the items that typically drive sales for a store that size.

Haffner’s put a sign on its door Oct. 14 announcing the move, store manager Steve Corbett said Wednesday.

With a somewhat surprising result, Corbett said, the sale of gas jumped 10 percent after management decided to stop selling age-restricted products. “It was better than expected,” he said.

For two weeks after the decision, Haffner’s allowed its supply of beer and cigarettes to diminish through sales, and they have not been restocked since, Corbett said.

The owner of Haffner’s, David Fournier, didn’t return phone calls seeking comment.

But according to Hudson Police Chief Jason Lavoie, Fournier decided on the spot to stop selling the products at a meeting with law enforcement.

Lavoie and state Liquor Commission Enforcement Chief Eddie Edwards met with Fournier shortly after a Haffner’s store clerk was arrested in September and charged with prohibited sales.

In a routine enforcement operation of area businesses that sell alcohol, the Liquor Commission allegedly caught the clerk selling alcohol to a minor at the store for the fourth time.

Lavoie said Wednesday that at their meeting, he and Edwards told Fournier that for the unforeseeable future, law enforcement would run routine stings directed solely at Haffner’s until it became apparent clerks were following the law. Also, all employees were to undergo training on the sale of alcohol, the chief said.

“As we talked about our concerns, he said he had the same concerns,” Lavoie said.

“He ends up suggesting: ‘What if I just get rid of alcohol and anything related to asking for an ID?’ We said, ‘That’s not what we’re saying here. We think that’s to the extreme.’”

But despite Lavoie and Edwards telling the owner that he didn’t have to halt the sale of liquor, but rather better regulate it, Fournier seemed intent on making a change, Lavoie said.

“He said this is not about business,” Lavoie said. “He said, ‘What if one of my employees sells alcohol and that minor does something bad? … How do I live with that?’”

The men talked more, and ultimately Fournier said he would also eliminate the sale of cigarettes and lottery products.

It seemed like an internal debate with Fournier, Lavoie said.

“He was concerned. It was a first for me,” Lavoie said.

According to the company’s website, the Hudson station is the only one of 14 Haffner’s gas outlets to have a convenience store. The other 13, which are all in Massachusetts, sell only fuel, with eight also offering car washes.

Corbett, the store manager, added that Haffner’s became frustrated with the expectations of the state Lottery Commission.

For one, the store received a 5-cent share of every dollar sold in lottery tickets, and that slim margin wasn’t enough to tolerate the demand to place scratch tickets in prominent spots where other more profitable products can sit, Corbett said.

Also, any customer buying several lottery tickets, or checking to see if any tickets produced winnings, typically held up the line and made other customers wait, he said.

“It was a nice wake-up call for the lottery,” Corbett said.

Albert McKeon can be reached at 594-5832 or amckeon@nashuatelegraph.com.