7 Eleven

TOKYO - Japan's largest retailer, Seven & I Holdings, said yesterday that it was offering $1 billion to buy the 27 percent of 7-Eleven, the ubiquitous U.S. convenience store chain, that it does not already own. The deal is one of the biggest investments by a Japanese company in the United States in recent years, and it would make 7-Eleven a fully owned subsidiary of the Japanese company. 7-Eleven, founded in Dallas 78 years ago, pioneered the concept of small grocery stores offering convenient long hours and grew into the largest such company in the world.

State officials have identified fuel tanks at a 7-Eleven convenience store in Aberdeen as at least one potential source of a gasoline additive contaminating that city's public drinking water supply. The Maryland Department of the Environment ordered 7-Eleven Inc. in an Aug. 13 letter to perform additional ground-water and soil sampling at its store at 602 S. Philadelphia Road after "extremely high concentrations" of methyl tertiary butyl ether, or MTBE, were detected beneath the store's underground fuel tanks.

State officials have identified fuel tanks at a 7-Eleven convenience store in Aberdeen as at least one potential source of a gasoline additive contaminating that city's public drinking water supply. The Maryland Department of the Environment ordered 7-Eleven Inc. in an Aug. 13 letter to perform additional groundwater and soil sampling at its store at 602 S. Philadelphia Road after "extremely high concentrations" of methyl tertiary butyl ether, or MTBE, were detected beneath the store's underground fuel tanks.

As visitors descend on Baltimore during the summer tourism season, staff writer Larry Bingham offers an occasional look at how the city has been portrayed by writers over the years. Today, an excerpt from local author Jonathon Scott Fuqua's 1998 young-adult novel The Reappearance of Sam Webber. In the story, the 11-year-old protagonist has moved from Rodgers Forge to Charles Village. "I looked around at the ground, at Ditch's torn-up work boots, splats of white paint across the toes. `There's a 7-Eleven near here?

Now at your Baltimore-area 7-Eleven: cell phones. The Dallas-based convenience-store chain today introduced a prepaid wireless telephone under its own brand name. Under the "Speak Out" program, customers can buy a Nokia phone for as little as $50 that operates on the Cingular Wireless network. The telephones are preprogrammed and the batteries pre-charged. Airtime charges are 20 cents per minute for local or long-distance calling. The phones are being sold at 7-Eleven stores in 14 cities, including the 128 outlets in the Baltimore area.

At a Glen Burnie 7-Eleven, Michael Kropkowski pulled the Diet Pepsi lever of the store's Slurpee-maker and watched as the cola-colored, icy slush climbed the sides of his tall, clear cup and filled the dome-shaped lid. A long straw topped off his creation. It might not be a cure for cancer, but it represented a sweet moment for a small Beltsville biotechnology firm that has spent years developing Tagatose, the low-calorie sugar substitute it contains. After years of struggles, Spherix Inc. is getting its first big shot at market acceptance.

HE SAYS HIS name is Albert Brown. At 8:30 yesterday morning, with rain falling from a dreary West Baltimore sky, he stands outside the 7-Eleven on Hollins Ferry Road and says he needs money for a hot dog to fill his empty stomach. He can buy one inside the 7-Eleven. It is also the place where Sylvester McLaughlin, 30, lay on the floor on New Year's Eve with the life spilling out of him and became the first homicide victim of the brand new year. "I know, I heard all about it," says Brown, brushing off talk of the killing.

Baltimore rapidly recorded two homicides early yesterday, soon after the city's deadliest year since 1999 came to a close. Sylvester McLaughlin, 30, of the 3600 bock of Campfield Road in the city became the first homicide victim of the year when he was pronounced dead at 1:18 a.m. at Maryland Shock Trauma Center. He had been shot at a convenience store at 3204 Hollins Ferry Road in West Baltimore several hours earlier. "It appears that the victim was outside the 7-Eleven when an unknown suspect approached him on foot and began shooting at him," said Baltimore Police Department spokeswoman Nicole Monroe.

A clerk at a 7-Eleven convenience store in Idlewilde was shot twice during an armed robbery early yesterday, Baltimore County police said. The clerk, a 35-year-old Baltimore resident who was not identified, was shot in the stomach and in the shoulder when the two robbers were leaving the store, police said. Police spokesman Bill Toohey said the clerk was mopping the floor about 4 a.m. yesterday when a man wearing a black bandana over his face, light-colored gloves and carrying a handgun walked into the 24-hour store in the 6300 block of Sherwood Road.

Two Howard County 7-Eleven stores were held up this week, county police said yesterday. The 7-Eleven in the 9400 block of Frederick Road in Ellicott City was robbed late Tuesday and the 7-Eleven in the 5700 block of Columbia Road in Columbia was robbed late Sunday, police said. Minutes before the Tuesday robbery, police said an employee arriving at work saw a man in his late teens wearing a black hooded sweat shirt using a pay phone outside the store. The man, described to police as black, 5 feet 9 inches to 5 feet 10 inches and 150 to 160 pounds, entered the store about 11 p.m. and announced a robbery.