Louie’s Superette may close its doors in the near future due to a drastic decline in business last year, according to owner Cheng-san Chen.

The convenience store near Mather House has been a popular destination for students seeking groceries, dorm supplies, and alcohol since 1987.

Chen called 2004 his worst business year in the store’s 17-year existence, citing a $150,000 drop in sales last year alone—a huge figure for a small store, he said.

If business continues at this pace, Chen said he will be forced to close the store.

“I’m losing money,” he said in an interview Tuesday.

Chen, who holds a Ph.D. in biophysics, said he partly attributes plummeting sales to a ruling by the Cambridge Licensing Commission last year that prohibited him from selling alcohol on Sundays.

Alcohol makes up about 50 percent of the store’s sales, Chen said, so he decided it would not be profitable to open at all on Sundays.

The sale of liquor on Sundays in Massachusetts is a new phenomenon. Since the revision of the “blue laws” in 2004—statutes codified by New England’s early Puritan settlers which mandated Sabbath observance, prohibited blasphemy, and forbade gaudy dress—Massachusetts businesses are permitted to sell alcohol on Sundays.

But after finding that Chen had intentionally sold alcohol to minors, the Licensing Commission ruled last March that he could not apply for a Sunday liquor license for a year.

Chen and his lawyers have drafted a petition which students can sign to help Chen acquire a Sunday liquor permit. The Commission will decide whether to grant Chen the permit in hearing on Feb. 22.

He said that the permit may be his store’s last hope. “If they don’t give me the permit, I think the store will be dead,” he said.

Chen said it is difficult to compete with stores that can sell liquor everyday.

“It’s a killer not to be open on Sundays,” he said.

Chen said that since his suspension he has stopped relying on memory to recall students’ ages, and instead rigorously checks IDs every time he sells alcohol.

He added that he even tries actively to prevent underage students from buying alcohol. Chen keeps a stack of confiscated IDs behind the store’s counter which he believes are fake.