Cuffs, camera, action!

A Dorchester police-supply shop goes Hollywood

by Dorie Clark

COP SHOP: at Doughboy, a doughnut shop turned police supplier, some of the cop gear is available to the public. Not, however, the POLICE LINE tape -- says manager Jack Miller (pictured here), "Can you imagine what they'd do with it at Halloween?"

Most doughnut-store owners do not end up selling handcuffs to Saudi Arabia, but Paul Barry is not your average doughnut guy. Barry, who was chief of security for the Boston Public Schools during the desegregation era, started his business in the late 1970s, supplying doughnuts and coffee to Everett Square's blue-collar Irish residents. In the midst of the recession, in 1989, he decided to diversify -- into police supplies.

"Probably 25 percent of your customers in a good doughnut-store location are police officers," he says. "I cannot explain how much business there was. We were storing police boots in our walk-in refrigerator because we didn't have room."

Barry sold off the doughnut part of the business nine years ago, but he kept the old motto: "Cuffs & Coffee." Today his store, Doughboy Police and Fire Supply, peddles dry goods to the Boston Police and Fire Departments, the US Marshals, and cops in Saudi Arabia and Germany -- not to mention Hollywood.

With the Bay State's recent cinematic popularity, "there aren't enough costume-design people in California to handle all the wardrobe," Barry says. "I get calls at least once a week." He's fitted the likes of Tommy Lee Jones, John Travolta, and Jeff Bridges, and does a handy trade providing police and firemen's uniforms for commercials.

Not everything here is for public consumption. Sales of billy clubs to civilians are verboten (though you can swing one around the store). And the huge roll of plastic POLICE LINE: DO NOT CROSS tape is off-limits to the badgeless. ("Can you imagine what they'd do with it at Halloween?" gasps manager Jack Miller.) But there's a plethora of items you can buy, like cut-resistant leather gloves ($41.95). Barry reports that senior citizens often come in to buy police shoes (starting at $59.95) because they're known for their comfort. Spry types like bikers and joggers may feel better battling Boston traffic in one of the bright-orange reflective vests that cops wear ($24.95, though your version won't have POLICE emblazoned on the back). Fans of Charlton Heston can get their holster fix for around $60.

Even notoriously liberal journalists are seen at Doughboy. "I'd hate to tell you," Barry says, "the number of media people in Boston who come to us looking for a bulletproof vest when they're going on assignment overseas."

Doughboy Police and Fire Supply is located at 198 Boston Street, in Dorchester. Call (617) 282-2677.