i live in a town of about 5,000-10,000 in south central PA near gettysburg. yall make us look like tokyo!
Opinions differ on topless coffee shop plan
VASSALBORO – Neighbors who live near the Grand View Motel, which could soon offer a grand view of another sort, offered mixed opinions Sunday on a proposal to turn the old motel into a coffee shop with topless waitresses.
Members of the Vassalboro Planning Board on Tuesday will consider Donald Crabtree of Ellsworth’s request for a business permit. Crabtree, who was working inside the building on Sunday, said he did not want to talk about his proposal prior to the meeting.
“I’d rather not talk,” he said. “Not right now.”
The former motel, which has been the site of many business ventures in the last several years, is on Route 3 just over the Augusta line. It was most recently Mac Daddy’s Pub at the Fat Cat Grille, which closed three or four years ago, said Planning Board Chairwoman Virginia Brackett.
The one-story building with log cabin-style siding still has an array of signs out front, including a real-estate sign, a Pepsi sign, a solicitation for someone to lease the building and one that says “Entertainment Thursday, Friday, Saturday.”
Becky Young, who lives on Mudget Hill Road, which runs behind the motel, said neighbors got a lot of unwelcome traffic when there was a bar open at that location. She’s not in favor of a topless coffee shop.
“This is a rural town,” she said as she walked her two dogs. “It’s country. People move here to be quiet. I think it would bring a bad crowd.”
Yet others said they hope some sort of stable business is able to make a go of it, regardless of whether waitresses wear tops or not.
“I’m hoping whatever takes place, hangs in there,” said Mike Provencher, who’s lived on the road for 20 years. “There were entertainment gals there before and it didn’t seem like it was problematic.”
Susan Smith, who rents a house on the road, said there were strippers at the bar a few years ago. She isn’t worried about a topless coffee shop.
“I work a lot, so it’s no big thing,” she said.
Randy McKiel said he too isn’t bothered by his potential new neighbor.
“I don’t mind what they do,” he said. “They’re just trying to make a living.”
When the Planning Board meets at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Town Office, it will not have the power to judge the business based on the attire of the staff, Brackett said. The business is required to apply for a permit because that site hasn’t been used for more than 90 days, she said. The board is charged with considering whether the site can handle the traffic the business is expected to draw, whether there’s adequate parking and other items such as lighting and the septic system. Brackett said she has no opinion on the topless aspect of the proposal.
“It’s not within our ordinance to say anything about it,” she said.
It’s kinda cold to go topless up there.
LOL…getting a kick reading some of these posts. I grew up in a REALLY small Canadian town that was very proud of itself and assembled a weekly newspaper. Some of the headlines were hilarious…
“Prominent local cat stuck in tree; fire-fighter called”
“Smucker’s Jam sponsors local “Jam-off”; entrants needed”
“Historic bench repainted”
…and so on.
-From the Front Page of My Paper-
Young Santa welcomes children, shoppers
by Nathan
Joshua Ginn dresses up as Santa Claus for his first time.
? Three-year-old Tyler Seymore walks up bashfully to Santa Claus.
Tyler had been eyeing him for several minutes from inside the store at *********'s Ace Hardware as his parents shopped. When he had walked inside the store at first, he clung to his mother as Santa wished them a ?Merry Christmas.?
?So what would you like for Christmas?? asks Santa, a.k.a. 19-year-old Joshua Ginn.
?Some toys,? answers Tyler after plopping onto Santa?s lap, seeming to be losing some of his shyness pretty quickly.
?Just toys? You want anything in particular?? But Santa can?t prod anything more specific out of Tyler.
Other children who came into Ace Hardware on Saturday and sat on Santa?s lap had been more specific.
?One of them wanted an MP3 player,? Santa?s alias Joshua Ginn said, sitting on a rocking chair inside Ace?s lobby, where several of his family members had come to visit. ?One of them wanted a pink car. One of them wanted a Barbie.?
Ginn?s grandmother, Thelma Wilson, said she was originally surprised when Ginn announced he was going to be dressing up as Santa.
Ginn said that when his boss had asked Ace?s employees if anyone wanted to be Santa on Saturday, he was the only who volunteered.
?I?m new here, so I figured I?d do it,? he said.
His grandmother described him as a hard worker. Ginn, who studied mechanics at Tri-County Technical College, works about 55 hours a week, between FedEx and Ace Hardware.
Even though he?s 19 ? about as young a Santa as you can get ? Ginn evidently had learned some lessons from Santa himself.
When children asked him for presents, he didn?t guarantee them anything.
?I told them if they?re good,? Ginn said. ?That?s what he always told me.?
-Small town SC checking in.
Man do I miss DC haha.
No shit here is Another Front Pager!
Powdersville is placed on the map
Where exactly is Powdersville? And why can?t you find it on a map?
While Powdersville wasn?t incorporated into a municipality this year, it did gain a stronger sense of identity in 2008.
U.S. Rep. Gresham Barrett announced in October that Powdersville residents will now be able to use the name ?Powdersville? as the city name when addressing letters. Any street customer in the Powdersville community who receives mail from Greenville 29611, Easley 29642 or Piedmont 29673 can begin using ?Powdersville? in the last line with the current zip code.
Haha yay my town made the map! Good grief.
Oh well, I moved recently to a different part of SC which is no larger though.
[quote]Yo Momma wrote:
It’s kinda cold to go topless up there.[/quote]
The headlights are always on… 
Good news in the area!!! Incidentally, Vassalboro, only a few minutes from me, is adjacent to the state capitol. The town is only a couple thousand people and is mostly woods/farms.
VASSALBORO (NEWS CENTER) – A proposal to open a topless coffee shop in Vassalboro has been approved for permit by the town planning board.
The board voted unanimously Tuesday night for Donald Crabtree’s coffee shop, saying his application had everything it needed.
The coffee shop will be open between 6am and 6pm, which has many residents concerned about children in the area.
Many townspeople stood up during the meeting to say the topless coffee shop had no place in a small town. They say it may attract business, but not the kind they’re looking for.
The coffee shop would be located at the former location of Mac Daddy’s Pub at The Fat Cat Grille - just beyond the Augusta town line.
Crabtree says it will be a small shop, only taking up the middle section of the large building, and seating 25 people - and while food may be served there, none of it will be cooked at the site.
The planning board says the only thing the town can do to close down the shop is to create an ordinance, but that wouldn’t be voted on until Town Meeting in June.
Other than that, Crabtree’s next step to open is to meet with the State Fire Marshal and then Health & Human Services.
This is just a couple minutes away, too. The band I played with (and still occasional gig with) practices just up the road from Hussey’s (where we get ou-ah cold bee-ah).
Living over the line in Lee, NH :
Hunter admits illegal deer kill
By CLYNTON NAMUO
New Hampshire Union Leader Correspondent
7 hours, 27 minutes ago
PORTSMOUTH ? A University of New Hampshire employee pleaded guilty yesterday to falsely reporting where a deer was killed as part of a ruse to hide the fact that the animal was taken from a protected town forest in Lee.
David Howard, 44, of Rochester, first reported the animal as killed in Greenland, but changed his story after state Fish and Game officers questioned him. Howard then said he shot the deer in Stratham and even took officers to the site of the alleged kill and showed them blood from where he dragged the animal from the forest as well as the internal organs he had removed.
But the animal wasn’t killed in Stratham. A resident of Lee reported a gunshot near Maud Jones Memorial Forest there on Nov. 8 and Fish and Game officers found a deer’s gut-pile nearby. [b]Suspecting foul play, Conservation Officer William Boudreau put one of his business cards into the animal’s stomach.
On Nov. 12, he pulled that same card from the pile that Howard showed him in Stratham.[/b] Howard must have suspected the jig was up when officers questioned his kill because once Boudreau pulled out the card, Howard produced a typed confession admitting he improperly killed the animal and moved it.
“He was taking it right to the end, I guess,” Boudreau said of Howard’s deception. But the blood-stained business card told the whole story.
Howard, a UNH public works supervisor, accessed the Lee forest via UNH property.
He pleaded guilty yesterday in Portsmouth District Court to falsely reporting where the deer was killed. He was ordered to pay a $120 fine and $250 in restitution, according to court records.
Howard also pleaded guilty to trespassing and improperly tagging a deer in Durham District Court last month in the same case, Boudreau said. He was fined $120 for the first charge, $240 for the second and had his hunting license suspended for a year.
Boudreau said Howard was apologetic in court yesterday and regretted the incident.
As for the deer, it was confiscated and is currently frozen at a Fish and Game office. The carcass will be donated to Hunt for the Hungry program that feeds families in need.
Boudreau said Fish and Game officers are constantly on the lookout for those who break hunting laws.
Although this is the first time he has used a business card to nab someone, Boudreau said there are other covert methods to track whether kills have been moved, such as cutting the claws of an animal or marking it with a powder that is only visible with a UV light.
Next time around, Boudreau said he may get one of his business cards laminated before slipping it into some innards.
“It was pretty nasty,” he said.
THURSDAY
At 2:29 p.m., there was a suspicious person at an unspecified location.
Is the Psychic Hotline calling in these tips?
[quote]SteelyD wrote:
VASSALBORO (NEWS CENTER) – A proposal to open a topless coffee shop in Vassalboro has been approved for permit by the town planning board.
…and while food may be served there, none of it will be cooked at the site.
quote]
Good thing, you know how painful cooking bacon while topless can be!
[quote]Cat Nip wrote:
Good thing, you know how painful cooking bacon while topless can be![/quote]
In fact, I DO!
Hey, how’s it going down there in New Hampster? You’re on the good side of “The Maple Curtain”, as opposed to “The People’s Republic of Maine”…
We just got a shit ton of snow. I’m definitely burning cals with the shovelling this season.
Things here are great. Yeah, we have snow, but it’s winter and it’s beautiful.
Big events this weekend: A gun show, and a bonfire at a bar called the Auburn Pitts. That’s horseshoe pits. This place looks like someone’s house, with a tiny bar inside, but a huge back yard with 10 horseshoe pits.
They are having a “burn your Christmas tree” bonfire this weekend. Yup, strap your tree on the roof, bring it to the bar, drag it out back, maybe add a little accelerant, crack a beer. Yeeehaw!
Sounds like my kinda parties
Man hospitalized after river walk
LEWISTON - Police, fire and rescue crews gathered on both sides of the Androscoggin River on Friday morning after several witnesses reported that a man was acting strangely on the ice.
Witnesses in both Lewiston and Auburn told police the man, who police declined to identify, was jumping up and down on the frozen river, pacing back and forth and at one point, partially disrobing.
Auburn police sent officers to that side of the river…
Meanwhile, firefighters were preparing to launch rescue boats on the chance that the man might fall through the ice. A state game warden went to the area and suited up in a cold water suit in preparation for a rescue.
Clad in a light coat, jeans and sneakers, the 30-year-old reportedly walked out onto the river about 10:30 a.m. from the Auburn side and remained there for at least a half hour. He was not wearing a hat or gloves in the cold , witnesses said.
Witnesses said at one point, the man took off his coat, removed his shirt and dropped his jeans down to his ankles. After approximately a minute, witnesses said the man tugged his pants back up, pulled his coat on and resumed pacing.
They said he walked to the Auburn side of the river several times, turned around and headed toward the opposite shore.
In Lewiston, police went to the river through the woods near the end of Whipple Street. In Auburn, police and rescuers were staged at a boat launch along North River Road.
For a time, it was unknown which side of the river the man would head toward. When he began to approach Lewiston police who were calling to him from that side, the man headed toward shore, pausing a few times before reaching police.
When he got to shore, a short distance from Riverside Cemetery, police helped the man off the ice and led him up to an embankment. The 30-year-old did not appear to be hurt but was taken to St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center to be evaluated.
Because the man was not criminally charged, police declined to identify him.
Just for perspective, this is close to what the Androscoggin in Lewiston kinda looks like this time of year.
This is the Kennebec River (the two meet at the Atlantic) in Augusta a few miles from me.
My home town:
Cow knocks over woman on bike, steps on her legs
BOULDER, Colo.?A woman has escaped serious injury and has refused medical treatment after a cow knocked the woman down and walked on her legs in Boulder.
Boulder Open Space and Mountain Parks ranger Pete Taylor says the woman was riding her bicycle along the South Boulder Creek Trail on Monday when she encountered the cow and stopped to let the animal cross.
Instead, the cow knocked the woman over and stepped on her legs.
Taylor says the woman wasn’t seriously hurt. Her name was not released.
The cow had left the area by the time rangers arrived, but other people warned fellow bikers and hikers on the trail about the animal.
Boulder Mountain Bike Alliance vice president Jason Vogel called the incident “odd, rare and random.”
And to think, that damn town is full of vegans.
[quote]pushmepullme wrote:
And to think, that damn town is full of vegans.
[/quote]
Well, there ya go. Cows are sensitive and prideful creatures.