EAST PROVIDENCE — City ordinances say it’s sufficiently away from East Providence High School’s main and vocational buildings.

There isn’t a church within 500 feet of the proposed business either, a condition that also must be met.

In addition, there has not been one blemish put on the permits and licenses for this establishment since it set up shop on Wampanoag Trail in the early 1990s.

None of that mattered to the majority of the City Council last night.

In a 3-to-2 vote, the board rejected a request to move Wine & Spirits Depot from its present location on the Trail to the Taunton Avenue shopping plaza behind and next to Burger King. The three members — Mayor Isadore Ramos, Valerie Perry and Bryan Silva — did not like that the city’s high school students would be in such close proximity to a liquor store.

“The idea that kids will be around there,” Perry said. “… I can’t vote for it.”

Lawyer Joseph Keough, who represented the store’s owners, said his clients understand the council members’ concerns as well as those from the high school administration who spoke against it last night and last month when the matter first appeared before the board. Yet he said the owners train their employees well to spot underage youths trying to buy liquor, present fake identification cards or have age-appropriate people come in to buy the liquor for them.

He also said the desired location exceeds the city’s 500-foot limit that liquor stores have to be away from schools and places of worship by almost double that amount. In addition, he said most other communitys in Rhode Island use a 200-foot limit. The city’s engineering department also confirmed it was beyond the 500-foot limit.

Finally, Keough said the store is out in the open with a possible Super Stop & Shop as its neighbor. He said it is “highly unlikely” that the students would try to buy beer and alcohol from an area where their parents, neighbors and others may frequent.

“We’re absolutely willing to be a good corporate citizen,” he said.

Through his questioning, Councilman Robert Cusack discovered the Depot has been “good corporate citizens” since 1993. It has not had any problems that could have caused them to loose their license. He also said when Barrington youths went to illegally get alcohol over the last few years — which have been widely publicized — they passed by the current store on the Trail and headed toward liquor spots in Providence.

This is because the youths know this company’s reputation: the Depot’s employees aren’t going to sell beer to the underaged, Cusack explained. He and Councilman Bruce DiTraglia voted to grant the move.

“If there’s a loophole, those kids are going to find it,” Ramos said, while remembering the days when he was the high school’s vice principal. “Legally, you’re probably right that it’s more than 500 feet away, but I just don’t … There will be a problem.”

Silva said the East Providence Police Department had to have a sting operation at the Shaw’s Supermarket across from the high school last year because the students were stealing. He said the market had cameras, but the kids still pilfered deodorant, hairspray and other things about the size of a can of beer.

“You’re dangling a lollipop in front of them and saying, ‘Now stay away,’ ” Silva said. “It’s too close for comfort [to the high school] for me to approve.”

City Solicitor William Conley Jr. said without “facts in the record” to back up the denial, the owners have a high probability of getting the license approved with an appeal to the state. Nonetheless, the three council members remained opposed.

After the vote, audience members shouted, “Unbelievable” and “Shame on you.”

apina@projo.com