A Look Back: April 7

50 Years Ago

■After an unusually mild winter, New England was recovering today from the second major storm of the week – one that caused power blackouts and school closings in the north and flooding in the south.

■ It’s been more than a month since Massachusetts became the 12th state to lower its drinking age to 18, and everybody’s happy. The “kids” are drinking, bar owners are smiling, and police chiefs are sighing with relief. A survey of more than a dozen area drinking spots yesterday revealed that business is booming, with volume jumping 25 to 40 percent in many places.

25 Years Ago

■Two new businesses are opening on Main Street in Northampton. Deerfield Woodworks, a wood furniture and upholstery retail store, will open May 1, at the site of Lulu’s, a short-lived movie memorabilia and toy store, and Native Art Trading Company of Accord, N.Y., is set to open a “hippie store,” in the words of a manager, where the former Alexander’s jewelry store was before it moved out on the last day of 1997.

■City councilors approve of the job Tax Collector Joanne Lobdell does, they just don’t like hiring her every year. Because city law demands it, the City Council must elect the tax collector annually, even though she’s a full-time employee who runs a department. So, for the third consecutive year, Lobdell was elected Thursday night.

10 Years Ago

■City Councilor Owen Freeman-Daniels will not run for re-election this fall after slightly more than one term on the council, opting instead to spend more time with his family. Freeman-Daniels was elected in the summer of 2011 to fill the final five months of a term vacated by former councilor Angela Plassmann, who resigned her position on the council in April of that year.

■Police reported breaking up a gathering of between 200 and 400 young people at Townehouse Apartments on Meadow Street in Amherst shortly after noon Saturday, a site considered a “hot spot” for large-scale parties in town. There was no violence reported as a result of the police action and no property damage, according to the detective bureau.

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