Hearing set on Wheatley Heights store plan

The Town of Babylon planning board is expected to hear final arguments Monday in a years-long battle over a proposed convenience store at a Wheatley Heights gas station.

The station owner's lawyer says the proposed 1,400-square-foot store in the triangle made by Straight Path, Volta Drive and Old Country Road would be a "benefit to the community." But some nearby residents say it would bring "drugs, loitering and crime" to a struggling neighborhood.

John Scaduto, a minister who lives nearby who made that warning in a recent letter to town officials, noted that he and other residents have spotted patrons of the small store already operating at the site urinating in public, littering and knocking on doors of neighboring houses to ask for money.

The store sells packaged items such as beer, candy and cigarettes.

Converting a unused garage in the rear to make way for a larger store will only worsen the problems surrounding it, Scaduto and others say.

Since 2007, when Ashwani Anand took over the station, Suffolk County police have recorded 57 "reported incidents" at the site, ranging from requests for police aid to robbery, though most were minor. The largest category is "disturbance," with 18 incidents since 2007. There were 22 incidents overall last year.

Darrell Conway, Anand's Babylon-based lawyer, said in an interview that his client is prepared to put $250,000 into improvements at the site: landscaping that would cover some of the weedy parking lot with grass, a new storefront facade to replace the faded one and security cameras surveying much of the area.

Town officials have recommended that the planning board restrict store hours to 7 a.m. to 9 p.m.

The gas station, Conway said, has "no connection" to criminal activity. And, he added, Anand needs the revenue the convenience store would generate to pay for the improvements.

"He might be making a nickel to a dime per gallon of gas that he sells . . . If you don't permit the convenience store, it stays the way it is. It continues to deteriorate."

Under former Supervisor Steve Bellone, Babylon's Town Board late last year lifted a prohibition imposed in 1991 on operation of a convenience store at the site.

Tim Ruggeri, a town spokesman, said the previous board had a threefold rationale for lifting the prohibition: bringing the property to the same standard as others in the area, reducing blight in the community and economic development.

"A thriving business on the property will increase the town's tax base," he wrote in an email.

Supervisor Rich Schaffer said he will push to see that residents' concerns over inadequate street lighting and litter in nearby lots are addressed. "My job now is to make sure the applicant follows through with the representations they made."

The planning board meets in Town Hall at 6 Monday night.