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Van Buren store reopening sought

OBSERVER Photo by M.J. Stafford This grocery store in Van Buren may be reopening soon. It’s the subject of an upcoming Pomfret Zoning Board of Appeals hearing.

A longtime staple of life in Van Buren could be returning soon.

Amanda Schnert wants to reopen the store at 5310 Lake Shore Drive West. It’s located at the intersection of that road, which is Route 5, with Van Buren Bay Road.

Closed for a few years now, the small grocery shop was also a gas station at one time. It was the only grocery in the immediate area.

The town of Pomfret’s Zoning Board of Appeals is set to take up Schnert’s reopening request at a Sept. 6 meeting. A public hearing on Schnert’s plan is scheduled for the meeting.

Schnert is applying for a special use permit under Pomfret’s new zoning law, which lays out a mixed-use business district along Route 5.

Schnert strongly supported the zoning change when a public hearing was held about it in June.

“I’ve been working on it for four years trying to get everything done after getting it in the county tax auction,” she said of the store. “I don’t really care how it happens, I just want it to happen.”

A legally required public notice announcing the Sept. 6 meeting appeared in Saturday’s OBSERVER.

The Zoning Board of Appeals will review the environmental significance of the proposed request, the notice notes.

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