Board planning to build ABC store
By Steve Herring
Published in News on March 13, 2015 1:46 PM
Wayne County commissioners have expressed mixed emotions about the new U.S. 70 Bypass. They see the road as a vital piece of needed infrastructure that will play a role in economic development, but at the same time, are worried it could be a possible drain on sales tax revenues.
And the project already has the Wayne County ABC Board ready to look for land along the highway to build a new store.
To prepare for that possibility, the ABC Board recently asked for and received unanimous approval from commissioners to increase the agency's capital improvement fund from $220,000 to $300,000.
Revenue for that fund comes from ABC sales, not property tax dollars.
"With the new bypass coming in, it will bypass four of our stores," ABC Board Business Manager Mike Myrick told commissioners. "It is going to hurt probably the Rosewood store and the Walnut Creek store -- Walnut Creek especially because it sits on the right-hand side that is going (east) to the beach.
"When the bypass bypasses all four of those, we are going to have some impact."
The other two stores are located on Landmark Drive and West Grantham Street.
County Manager George Wood said he agreed and that the ABC Board needs to get some property on the bypass to "recapture some of those sales."
"I don't know if you know it, but Johnston County built a little (ABC) agency right there on the county line by the Dollar General there in Princeton," Myrick said. "It has impacted our Rosewood store by 10 percent.
"Our Rosewood store is still making money, but it has cut into the profits a little bit. With this bypass, in a year or year and a half, we will probably be looking for something on that northern part of the bypass to put a new store somewhere up there."
Despite the lost sales at the Rosewood store, ABC sales countywide are up 2 percent, Myrick said.
"We had another good year ending in June 2014," he said. "Distributions to the cities and the county are up and this first six months of this year they are even more than last year.
"In the last two years we have given more than $300,000 to the county. We hope to be around $320,000 this year."
Based on the first six months this year, that looks like that will be the case, he said.
The money distributed to the county and municipalities where the stores are located comes from revenue generated by alcohol sales.