Winchester Food Mart cited for selling to minors

By Editor | April 12, 2023 |

By Carmen Ensinger

Winchester Police Chief Steve Doolin, in giving his monthly report to the Winchester City Council on April 5, reported that undercover buys of both alcohol and cigarettes were performed within the city limits recently.

“We performed an undercover buy at BP (Winchester Food Mart), Scotty’s, the Bowling Alley and the Dog House,” Doolin said. “The only sale to minors was at the BP station. We did them two weeks in a row because they sold it the first time and they did it again.”

According to Winchester Mayor Rex McIntire, this is not the first time that the convenience store has sold alcohol to minors.

“About a year or a year and a half ago, we had a sting like this and they sold it to the undercover agent then too,” McIntire said. “We had a meeting right here in this room and I showed them leniency, but if this ever comes up again, I’m not going to be so nice – they are going to suffer a penalty. And if it continues, I’m going to recommend we pull their liquor license.”

Employees who fail to check the identification of the person buying the alcohol face legal action just as the owner of the station does. Most of the time, the employee is terminated, but Chief Doolin said that isn’t the case in Winchester.

“Right now, the two employees that sold to the minors are still employed,” he said. “So, that tells me that he is about his own bottom dollar and nothing else. If he truly cared about the community he would have disciplined them by now or terminated them. But all he cares about is his money.”

Reg Benton, with Benton and Associates, was on hand to present the Motor Fuel Tax (MFT) proposal to the city council for their proposal. This year’s MFT proposal is in the amount of $90,000.

“We have identified on a map the streets most in need of the seal coat and then referred to the detailed estimate of cost, quality of materials and came up with a total operations and maintenance cost of $84,075,” Benton said. “So, we just rounded it up to a flat $90,000. You are not obligated to spend that much, of course, but it is there if you need it.”

An alderman asked why this year’s MFT program was more expensive than last year’s program. Public Works Supervisor John Simmons had the answer to that question.

“One of the reasons it is more expensive this year is that we had to include the roads out at the cemetery this year,” he said. “Therefore, we have more roads than we normally do. Another reason it is a little higher than normal is that we held back the last couple years.”

Benton also gave an update on the water main project.

“We hope to have that project ready for submittal to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for the permitting process sometime this month,” he said. “We have finished gathering the information and are getting ready for a coordination meeting with the city so we can get it submitted to the EPA.”

Benton also presented to the council an engineering agreement for his firm to assist the city with its discharge permit for its waste water treatment plant at a cost of $2,500

“This is typically good for five years and the submittal date is early July,” Benton said. “They want to have it six months ahead of time to review it or they find you in default even though the permit is still good for six months.”

Benton updated the council on the library project, which has been completed with the pouring of the concrete driveway.

However, there were some questions regarding the length of the driveway. Library board members and Mayor McIntire thought the driveway was supposed to go back the entire length of the building, not just back to the old portion. Another complaint was that it was very narrow. Benton said he would look into this.