NORWAY – Planning Board members gave Tim Horton’s Restaurant the go-ahead to operate 24 hours a day on Fair Street, despite concerns from neighbors.
“I’m deeply disappointed,” Doris Ray said in a phone interview Friday. Ray is a resident of Green Street, which abuts the rear of the property Tim Horton’s will occupy. She wrote and circulated a petition asking the board to restrict Tim Horton’s hours of operation, along with other conditions. Although it was signed by 10 residents of the street, the petition did little to sway the votes of the planning board, or the intentions of Tim Horton’s officials.
Al Perry, local attorney for Tim Horton’s, told board members that the company’s corporate policy of 24-hour operation is not about profit. In a small town like Norway, he said, the restaurant might only serve one or two customers per hour after midnight. However, “it’s important to be available to police officers, medical personnel, firefighters: those whose job it is to be up at this time of night.”
Ray said that in agreeing to Tim Horton’s 24-hour policy, the board is “going against their own decision.”
When Wendy’s opened five years ago in the spot Tim Horton’s will occupy, Green Street residents feared the hamburger restaurant would operate 24 hours a day. Ray circulated a petition, which she said “nipped that in the bud.
“Are they being inconsistent?” she asked. The area now has more traffic, is more dangerous, and more prone to accidents, she said. If the guidelines created for Wendy’s were good enough then, Ray asked why more lenient guidelines are being set for Tim Horton’s now.
Chairman Dennis Gray clarified in a phone interview that the Planning Board didn’t restrict Wendy’s hours of operation. It only stated that the drive-thru window must close at 11 p.m.
“People could still go there after that, they’d just have to get out of their cars.”
The petition did win one small victory for Green Street residents, though. Ray said that Wendy’s trash was removed at 5 a.m.
“It rattled us awake every Monday morning,” she said.
The Planning Board amended Tim Horton’s site plan to restrict trash removal to between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m., as requested in the petition.
Not all of Tim Horton’s neighbors are unhappy, said Michelle Campbell, owner of Hair Plus. The company is working with Campbell to place boulders between her property and theirs to keep cars from accessing the restaurant through the hair salon’s backyard, she said.
“We’re going to give Tim Horton’s operation the opportunity to prove that they can be a good neighbor,” Gray said.
Ray does not plan to appeal the decision.
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