Service Station

Wilton Andrews Elburn Sr., a former manager of a Falls Road service station and a volunteer, died Sunday of complications from pneumonia at Northwest Hospital Center. The longtime Reisterstown resident was 63. Mr. Elburn was born in Baltimore and grew up in the Medfield neighborhood. After graduating from Polytechnic Institute in 1961, he served in the Coast Guard for several years. In the 1960s, he went to work for Elburn's Garage in the 4400 block of Falls Road, which had been established by his father and grandfather in 1932.

Just two days after U.S. antitrust authorities approved Exxon Corp.'s bid to buy Mobil Corp., the newly created oil giant announced yesterday that it would sell 1,740 service stations in the Northeast to Tosco Corp. for $860 million.The stations -- included in the 2,431 stations the Federal Trade Commission demanded Exxon Mobil Corp. sell as part of its merger -- include about 120 Mobil stations in Maryland.Tosco, which is based in Stamford, Conn., is buying the Mobil outlets from Virginia to New Jersey and the Exxon stations from New York to Maine.

Charles E. Kitting, 81, Baltimore Sun truck driverCharles E. Kitting, a retired truck driver for The Baltimore Sun, died Monday of emphysema at Harbor Hospital Center. He was 81 and lived in Hanover.Mr. Kitting joined the publishing company as a chauffeur in 1950 and later drove newspaper delivery trucks throughout Maryland. The former South Baltimore resident retired in 1980.Born in Lewistown, Pa., where he was educated, he came to Baltimore in the early 1930s.He served in the Army during World War II.At his request, no services will be held.

This is the day that service stations have to meet new federal standards for their underground fuel storage tanks or quit pumping gasoline, but Maryland motorists aren't expected to notice much change.The vast majority of the Maryland's 2,175 service stations meet the new safety regulations that became effective at midnight, state and industry officials said yesterday.Herbert M. Meade, chief of compliance at the Maryland Department of the Environment, estimates that 85 percent of the underground fuel tanks are in compliance.

The Howard County liquor board denied a license yesterday for a Columbia gas station to sell beer and wine.In a 3-2 vote, the board -- composed of the County Council members -- refused to approve a beer and wine license for the Columbia Exxon service station on Little Patuxent Parkway near the Banneker fire station. Owner Lloyd M. Thacker of Ellicott City said he wanted to sell alcoholic beverages in the convenience store.The service station would have been the first in Howard County to sell alcohol, a precedent council members said they did not want to set."

11 chamber members nominated for awardsThe Howard County Chamber of Commerce has nominated 11 members for awards to be presented by the Maryland Small Business Association.Nominated for Small Business Person of the Year were Dave Jourdan of Nauticos; Chad Houck, Mike Bogden and Dave Hall of the Search Connection; and Beth and Peter Horowitz of EVI Inc.Richard Huffman of Enchanted Child Care learning centers was nominated for Young Entrepreneur of the Year. Matt Horowitz of Valderas, August & Horowitz was nominated for Accountant of the Year.

An Anne Arundel circuit judge has postponed ruling on the insanity plea of a Bowie man charged in the 1995 shooting death of a Gambrills service station manager.Blake Allen Ohman, 38, who lived with his mother in the 3000 block of Tanbark Lane, is charged with first-degree murder in the slaying of Patrick William Clements Dec. 21, 1995.Clements, of the 1600 block of Midland Road, Edgewater, was shot to death at the Exxon station at Route 3 and Waugh Chapel Road.Ohman entered an insanity plea yesterday before Judge Clayton Greene Jr. after psychiatrists at Clifton T. Perkins Hospital Center determined that he lacked the mental capacity to intentionally commit murder.

Decades after the first gallon of gasoline was pumped at a roadside parcel in woodsy Worthington Valley, Baltimore County officials are to go to court today seeking to shut down a towing company they say is operating illegally there.Lawyers for the county say inspectors made a dozen visits to Hi-Caliber Towing & Auto Repair during a four-month stretch last year and each time found at least one zoning violation.The county is asking for a court order prohibiting the company from conducting business at its property, on a rural stretch of Park Heights Avenue north of Caves Valley Golf Club.

The Baltimore County zoning commissioner refused yesterday to hear arguments from an Owings Mills towing company that had been fighting to stay in business, saying that Hi-Caliber Towing & Auto Repair had already had its day in court.County zoning officials had cited Evan M. and Cindy L. Shifren for operating a garage illegally after a judge in Baltimore Circuit Court ruled in 1995 that the business conflicted with the residential zoning on the land.At issue in the court case was whether a gas station had been continuously operated on the property since the land was zoned.

The owner of a service station that Baltimore County officials say has been operating illegally in a rural area of Owings Mills is asking the county zoning commissioner for approval to continue to do business at the site.But first, Evan M. Shifren, co-owner with his wife of Hi-Caliber Towing & Auto Repair, must make the case that he hasn't already had his day in court.A hearing on Shifren's petition for zoning approval for a gas station and repair facility on his property on Park Heights Avenue, north of Caves Valley Golf Club, was postponed yesterday because many opponents had not been notified of the hearing.

2 child-care centers will remain open Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon has decided not to close two child care centers, reversing a cut proposed in her initial 2010 spending plan. The mayor determined Friday that federal grant money can be used to keep the centers in Northwood and Waverly open. The centers were among the services the city planned to cut to fill a $65 million gap in the budget that begins in July. The two centers serve 85 children and cost $126,000 yearly to operate. -Annie Linskey Man found dead behind gas station City police are investigating the apparent beating death of a man whose body was found Sunday behind a service station near Northwestern High School in the city's Fallstaff neighborhood.

Charles Talbot Gladstone Jr., a service station owner who founded the Maryland Independent Service Station Dealers Association, died of complications from dementia Dec. 14 at Quail Run, an assisted-living facility in Perry Hall. The former longtime Timonium resident was 73. Mr. Gladstone, the son of a filling station owner, was born in Baltimore and raised on Parklawn Avenue. He was a 1953 graduate of Polytechnic Institute and earned a bachelor's degree in education from the University of Maryland, College Park, in 1957.

A plan to bring a gas station and carwash to the Waverly Woods Village Center in western Howard County died Wednesday when the county Zoning Board unanimously voted against a zoning change in the fifth hearing on the matter. "I'm obviously very disappointed in the outcome of the case," Rick Levitan, co-owner of the petitioner, Convenience Retailing LLC, said in an e-mailed statement yesterday. "I'm shocked that this Zoning Board showed no regard for the recommendations of its own Department of Planning and Zoning (DPZ)

A gas station owner will get more time to put together a bid to get zoning changed to allow a service station and car wash in Waverly Woods Village Center. Convenience Retailing LLC has been working on the project for about two years and has attended three public hearings on the matter. A Zoning Board hearing set for last week has been moved to Dec. 12. "We needed a little bit more time to prepare for our final argument," said Rick Levitan, whose company has gas stations in Dorsey's Search, Owen Brown and Pikesville.

A gas station proposed for Waverly Woods is the lesser of two evils in a contest with a possible fast-food restaurant, some residents and business operators believe. Others welcome the service station proposed for Waverly Woods Village Center shopping center by Convenience Retailing LLC as a way to draw new customers and to eliminate a roughly five-mile drive to get gas. "It is definitely better than a fast-food restaurant," said H.J. Pflueger, who lives in Waverly Woods, about six blocks from the service station proposed for the intersection of Warwick Way and Birmingham Way. "Then people come, they eat and they throw it around.

Wells for a half-dozen homes in the Randallstown area have been tested after gasoline contamination was detected in groundwater at a property with a long history of pollution problems, according to the Maryland Department of the Environment. The tests are a precaution - required because concentrations of benzene and MTBE were found recently in shallow groundwater near Charlie's Service Station on Liberty Road near Wards Chapel Road, said Herb Meade, administrator of the MDE's oil control program.

Inmate admits killing convicted murderer A state prison inmate pleaded guilty yesterday to strangling Richard Spicknall, who was serving life sentences for killing his two young children. Lawrence Joseph Lannin, 37, will see no discernible punishment for the crime: He was sentenced in Anne Arundel County Circuit Court to life without parole, adding to the two life sentences he's already serving for a pair of 1994 murders in Prince George's County. Last Dec. 9, Lannin strangled Spicknall, 34, with his hands, then a cord, in a shower at the Jessup Correctional Institution, where both men were housed in protective custody, separated from the general prison population.

Wilton Andrews Elburn Sr., a former manager of a Falls Road service station and a volunteer, died Sunday of complications from pneumonia at Northwest Hospital Center. The longtime Reisterstown resident was 63. Mr. Elburn was born in Baltimore and grew up in the Medfield neighborhood. After graduating from Polytechnic Institute in 1961, he served in the Coast Guard for several years. In the 1960s, he went to work for Elburn's Garage in the 4400 block of Falls Road, which had been established by his father and grandfather in 1932.

Henry R. "Bud" Kuczinski, longtime Baltimore County service station owner and pool player, died Saturday of cirrhosis of the liver at his Essex home. He was 71. Mr. Kuczinski was born in Baltimore and raised near Patterson Park. Two days after graduating from Patterson High School in 1954, he enlisted in the Navy and served as a communications technician for eight years. After his 1962 discharge, Mr. Kuczinski purchased a Gulf station on Highland Avenue, and subsequently purchased and sold three more service stations before buying what became Bud's Exxon on Eastern Avenue.

I was among the throngs of door slammers who last weekend streamed through the 2007 Motor Trend International Auto Show at the Baltimore Convention Center. I heard rumors that there were some exquisite $100,000 machines there, Maseratis, Lamborghinis, even Ferraris. I am not sure, because I kept my head down when I got near anything luxurious. My interests were less lofty. I was looking for the recently rechristened Ford Taurus, the basic family car. For decades, the Ford Taurus ruled the American sedan scene.