The scheduled condemnation today of an historic downtown Tyrone building has led a Lock Haven-area business owner to relocate his tobacco store just down the street from its old location.
Owner Paul Mahoney decided to move the Puff-N-Snuff store after learning Tyrone Borough planned to condemn the Garman building at 978-80 Pennsylvania Avenue. The downtown building, which was built in 1910, has been the subject of ongoing issues between the owner and Tyrone Borough dating back to early 2004.
“We decided it was time to get out of there,” said Mahoney.
The new location for the store is 912 Pennsylvania Avenue. Mahoney closed the old location on Tuesday and used yesterday as moving day, with the new location open for business as of this morning.
A condemnation notice had been issued against the Garman Building owners, William Loner and Barbara Loner, in March. However, the borough held off on enforcing the order since Loner had been making attempts to repair the code issues. A building permit had been issued and reissued numerous times and work on the property, specifically a back wall, had been started and stopped repeatedly since last year.
Code enforcement officer Tom Lang said the building was looked at a second time by the borough’s engineer and it was learned a bearing wall on the side that is up against the next building was in poor condition.
Lang said a notice of condemnation was hand-delivered to Mr. Loner when he came into the code enforcement office at the municipal building. Lang said that if Mahoney had not made arrangements to leave the building prior to today’s condemnation, the store would had to have been vacated anyway since the building cannot be occupied with the condemnation order in effect. A condemnation order deems a building unfit for human occupancy until such time any violations are corrected and the code officer declares that the building can again be occupied.
Mahoney said he decided to relocate since the code issues were “an ongoing thing.” He said he liked the location at the corner of 10th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, but he indicated he did not want to risk being closed even for a short time in the event the issues were corrected quickly. However, he indicated he did not think that was going to be the case.
In an unrelated issue, Mahoney also saw the loss of his lottery operations earlier this year when the borough refused to let him install a handicapped-accessible ramp along 10th Street. ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) compliance is required for new lottery retailers. Mahoney had installed the lottery in March of 2005, but had to suspend sales when he could not comply with the lottery requirement within a one-year period. Mahoney had continued to make efforts to become ADA-compliant. He recently installed a window along Pennsylvania Avenue at the old store that would have allowed lottery purchases from the street and met the ADA requirement. Mahoney said he had invested $2,000 to make the change.
Mahoney said the new location would be ADA-compliant and he expected lottery sales to be back up and running in two to four weeks.
As for the Loners, they have been appealing fines issued against them regarding the Garman building. Just yesterday, a hearing was held in Blair County Court regarding fines issued against them by Magisterial District Judge Fred Miller last autumn.
Yesterday afternoon, Lang told The Daily Herald that Judge Hiram Carpenter did not make a ruling after the hearing. Lang said he did not know when a ruling would be handed down.
