C-Store News In Brief…
Sunoco LP has completed the purchase of the retail convenience store business serving the Upstate New York market from Valentine Stores Inc. This acquisition includes 18 company-operated locations, which sell approximately 20 million gallons of fuel annually, and one standalone Tim Horton’s restaurant. As part of the transaction, Sunoco’s subsidiary acquired a total of 19 fee properties, one leased property and three tracts of land for future store development. This acquisition strengthens Sunoco’s existing convenience store business in the Upstate New York market. The purchase price was $76.4 million…
Adults ages 18-21 still will be able to smoke in Portland, Maine, but soon will not be able to purchase cigarettes to do so. The Portland City Council approved an ordinance raising the minimum tobacco-buying age to 21, but kept the legal smoking age at 18 years old. The move makes Portland the first Maine city with such a tobacco-buying restriction, following a nationwide trend to raise the age requirement of tobacco purchases to be in line with alcohol purchases. Currently, more than 100 localities, including Boston, Chicago and New York City, and two states, California and Hawaii, require adults to be 21 to buy any form of tobacco. Most of those laws also include e-cigarettes…
Even as gas prices rose another 18 cents over the past month, the fourth consecutive month of price increases, Americans say that higher gas prices are not affecting their feelings about the economy. Consumer sentiment over the economy remains unchanged from the previous two months (44 percent are optimistic) and only 24 percent say that gas prices have a “great impact” on their economic perspective, according to the latest national consumer survey released by the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS).
