Bootleggers on Broadway, a Troy restaurant and bar that has been unable to serve alcohol since soon after a Dec. 3 raid found more than 50 underage drinkers and nearly 100 college students with fake IDs, will be allowed to sell alcohol again.

The board of the State Liquor Authority this morning voted to approve the return of Bootleggers’ liquor license, which it had suspended on an emergency basis on Dec. 9.

A post on Bootleggers’ Facebook page says it will reopen on Feb. 26. It was open for food service from Dec. 9 through the end of the year but has since been closed.

Under a plea worked out between the SLA and Bootleggers’ attorney, James D. Linnan of Albany, the business will pay a $15,000 fine. In addition, it will discontinue the weekly College Night promotion that on Dec. 3 had attracted what the SLA characterized as 175 underage patrons, a figure Bootleggers disputes.

The license return is contingent on Bootleggers meeting further stipulations imposed by the board, including state-of-the-art scanners to detect fake IDs, use of scanners both at the door and by bartenders prior to sales, all service staff receiving SLA-approved training in alcohol sales and prevention of sales to minors, and a ban after 10 p.m. on patrons younger than 21 who are unaccompanied by a parent or guardian. Bootleggers, which as of Tuesday will have been closed 70 days, received credit for time served for the 60-day license suspension that was part of the plea deal.

During the hearing, the board, comprised of SLA Chairman Vincent Bradley and Commissioner Kevin Kim, expressed concern about the number of violations and that Bootleggers had been hosting College Night for more than a year. But board members said the five-year-old business’ absence of prior SLA violations or disciplinary action and its vow to recommit to operating as a restaurant, not an underage destination, justified returning the license.

“They have … stopped the college nights. They want nothing more to do with them,” Linnan told the board. “The licensee is a restaurant that serves alcohol, not a bar that happens to sell food.”

In a recent post on its website, the Troy Drug Free Community Coalition called for a protest of Bootleggers being allowed to regain its liquor license. The post said, “This slap on the wrist is a joke!” and asked people to register objections via phone or in person at the hearing. An SLA spokesman said no one showed up at Tuesday’s hearing to voice opposition to the Bootleggers deal.

Others in the community were in favor of Bootleggers reopening. Linnan began his remarks to the SLA board by relaying a recent conversation he had with Elizabeth Reiss, CEO the Arts Center of the Capital Region, a downtown Bootleggers neighbor, in which she congratulated him on the SLA deal and praised Bootleggers as a favorite spot for her and Arts Center staff.

Reiss confirmed that Linnan had accurately described their exchange, telling me, “It’s definitely a place we go and like.”