Gas Pumps

A 16-year-old driver crashed her car into fuel pumps at a Brooklandville gas station last night, causing a fire that destroyed the vehicle, Baltimore County Police said.No one was injured.Police said the driver was pulling into Valley Exxon at West Joppa and Falls roads about 8 p.m. when her foot accidentally left the brake pedal and hit the accelerator, sending her Buick Skylark into the gas pumps.Police said the cashier shut off the pumps before fleeing the booth, which was burning. She was credited with preventing a much larger fire.

The county administrative hearing officer has turned down a Baltimore company's request to add gasoline pumps to a planned expansion of its Severn convenience store.Cloverland Farms Dairy Inc. wanted to build two pump islands at Route 174 and Telegraph Road, as part of a plan to tear down the existing 1,000-square-foot store and replace it with a 2,880-square-foot structure.The store expansion is allowed under general commercial zoning, but hearing officer Robert C. Wilcox denied the company's request for variances and a special exception to allow the self-service gas station.

The Howard County Board of Appeals will decide Tuesday whether High's of Baltimore Inc. should be granted a special exception to operate a gas station in a Lisbon shopping center.Two gas pumps at the proposed convenience store near Old Frederick and Woodbine roads are the center of a community debate.Neighbors argued at a 4 1/2 -hour Board of Appeals hearing Tuesday that the motorists using nearby Interstate 70 would flock to the High's for food and gas, creating hazards in the already congested area.

Community leaders say they will oppose a plan today by a convenience store chain to expand its Severn outlet and add gas pumps, saying added traffic and the possibility of a fuel explosion endanger their neighborhood.Cloverland Farms Dairy Inc. wants to build a 2,880-square-foot Royal Farms store, an adjacent 1,620-square-foot retail space and install two pump islands on about one acre at Routes 174 and 170, according to applications filed with the Department of Planning and Code Enforcement (PACE)

Some Lisbon residents are furious over the Howard County Board of Appeals' decision to let a High's convenience store have gas pumps at its planned store at Lisbon Center, warning of traffic congestion and competitive damage to other local businesses.The board approved the pumps 5-0 Tuesday night. Only three of the five members who voted had been present for a June 6 hearing on the issue of having pumps at the store."I make my living off of gas sales," said Larry Flickinger, who owns Lisbon Citgo, a gas station three-quarters of a mile from the High's store.

An Anne Arundel County official has denied a Baltimore corporation's request to convert part of its Pasadena convenience store into a 24-hour self-service gasoline station.Administrative Hearing Officer Robert C. Wilcox ruled Thursday that Cloverland Farms Dairy Inc. cannot install a two-pump island at its Royal Farms store on Fort Smallwood Road.Neighbors of the convenience store applauded the decision."We're very pleased with it," said Thomas LaMartina, who lives behind the site. "It's too commercial here now. We're pleased to see that someone's listening to us."

A handful of neighbors told the Howard County Board of Appeals last week that they are worried about plans to demolish Bill's Ranch Exxon in Ellicott City and construct a new facility.The new Exxon on Montgomery Road near Long Gate Center would be a more modern building with a canopy, eight gas pumps and a convenience store. The gas station would no longer employ a full-time mechanic and would abandon its bay facility.Residents fear the gas station and convenience store would increase traffic and that the lighting from the station's canopy would reflect onto neighboring properties.

The only corner of Ritchie Highway and Jumpers Hole Road without a gas station soon will be getting one. But one of the occupied corners will become unoccupied.The Crossroads Exxon station, which three years ago moved from the southeast corner to the northeast corner of the intersection during a bitter fight between the oil company and the station owner, is moving back to its former site.Rus Warfel, a lawyer who represents Exxon, said the company decided to move back because the original location has more space.

Even critics who disagree with Stanley H. "Jack" Tevis III's plan to put a gas station and small grocery store in downtown Westminster have nothing negative to say about the man himself.Mr. Tevis, 48, the third generation of his family to head Tevis Oil Inc., a local heating oil and gasoline business, has a reputation as a nice guy. He also has a reputation as an astute businessman who is quick to spot an opportunity and turn it into dollars.His plan to put a gas station and large convenience or small grocery store on the Farmers Supply Co. Inc. property at Liberty and West Green streets sparked a public debate over what downtown Westminster should become.

State police are searching for the driver of an auto who caused about $16,000 damage to two fuel pumps at Piper's Wine & Spirit Barn near Manchester on Tuesday night."

WASHINGTON - Standing alongside a row of gas pumps at a Shell station, Rocky Twyman joined hands with several cohorts, prayed to God for economic and social relief then sang "We Shall Overcome" - inserting the lyrics "We'll have lower gas prices" the second time around. For nearly a month, Twyman, a Rockville resident who serves as music director for a Baltimore church, has been praying at gas pumps - and anywhere else he is welcome - asking God to lower prices. Of course, since he started his prayer campaign, or what he calls a movement, the price of gas just keep inching upwards.

THE Q: With gasoline prices soaring toward $4 a gallon, more eagle-eyed drivers are paying closer attention to the accuracy of gas pumps as they fill up. Last week, two unrelated but similar queries came in. http://www.mda.state.md.us/weights_measures to print out a complaint form and fax it to 410-841-2765. Once the Weights and Measures division is notified, program manager Kenneth Ramsburg says, "We try to get an inspector in the field to go out that same day the complaint came in, and if not the same day, then the very next day. We do take these complaints very seriously."

The Harford County Development Advisory Committee serves as a forum for the review of subdivision and site plans submitted to the Department of Planning and Zoning by those seeking building permits. The committee will review the following proposals at 9 a.m. Wednesday in the second-floor conference room of the Harford County government building, 220 S. Main St., Bel Air: High's of Joppa Location: North side of Pulaski Highway, east of Mountain Road. Developer: Magnolia One LLC/High's of Baltimore/Messick & Associates.

William L. Burch, a retired Baltimore police officer who raised his three children as a single father, died of heart failure Tuesday at his daughter's home in Hampstead. He was 62. A longtime resident of Randallstown, Mr. Burch delighted in fishing, motorcycle riding, and teaching baseball and poker to his children and grandchildren. He made up nicknames for everyone he knew. He maintained several collections, including guns, memorabilia from World War II and the Old West, and old gas pumps.

For the most part, Maryland motorists are getting a gallon of gasoline when they pay for a gallon of gasoline, the state Department of Agriculture reported yesterday. "Sometimes motorists are getting a little more, sometimes a little less," said Louis E. Straub, chief of the department's Weights and Measures Section. In response to a 15 percent jump in consumer complaints this year, the division recently completed a two-week inspection. It tested the accuracy of 7,700 gas pump meters, slightly more than 20 percent of those in the state.

GAITHERSBURG -- Bone disease may confine Cindy Buddington to a wheelchair, but as a driver, she's wholly independent. Her van has doors that pop open and a lift that slides out to carry her into the vehicle -- all controlled by a remote at her fingertips. Once she wheels her chair in place, everything is tailored to her needs. A smaller-than-usual steering wheel requiring little strength to maneuver. An accelerator and brake by her hands. Easy-to-reach buttons to flip on headlights and turn signals.

A 16-year-old driver crashed her car into fuel pumps at a Brooklandville gas station last night, causing a fire that destroyed the vehicle, Baltimore County Police said.No one was injured.Police said the driver was pulling into Valley Exxon at West Joppa and Falls roads about 8 p.m. when her foot accidentally left the brake pedal and hit the accelerator, sending her Buick Skylark into the gas pumps.Police said the cashier shut off the pumps before fleeing the booth, which was burning. She was credited with preventing a much larger fire.

The county administrative hearing officer has turned down a Baltimore company's request to add gasoline pumps to a planned expansion of its Severn convenience store.Cloverland Farms Dairy Inc. wanted to build two pump islands at Route 174 and Telegraph Road, as part of a plan to tear down the existing 1,000-square-foot store and replace it with a 2,880-square-foot structure.The store expansion is allowed under general commercial zoning, but hearing officer Robert C. Wilcox denied the company's request for variances and a special exception to allow the self-service gas station.

Community leaders say they will oppose a plan today by a convenience store chain to expand its Severn outlet and add gas pumps, saying added traffic and the possibility of a fuel explosion endanger their neighborhood.Cloverland Farms Dairy Inc. wants to build a 2,880-square-foot Royal Farms store, an adjacent 1,620-square-foot retail space and install two pump islands on about one acre at Routes 174 and 170, according to applications filed with the Department of Planning and Code Enforcement (PACE)

A handful of neighbors told the Howard County Board of Appeals last week that they are worried about plans to demolish Bill's Ranch Exxon in Ellicott City and construct a new facility.The new Exxon on Montgomery Road near Long Gate Center would be a more modern building with a canopy, eight gas pumps and a convenience store. The gas station would no longer employ a full-time mechanic and would abandon its bay facility.Residents fear the gas station and convenience store would increase traffic and that the lighting from the station's canopy would reflect onto neighboring properties.