New variety store possible

A search for a location for a new variety store is currently underway, and with everything else in place, principals in the business are hopeful for an opening sometime in February.

Negotiations are currently stalled on a lease of the Midway Avenue building that until last fall housed The Variety Store, but Launi Ritter said she is also looking for another suitable location for the business. The principal investors would be her parents, Douglas and Mary Lou Lockard, of Sammamish, Washington.

Ritter said they are interested in leasing space are looking at a second site on Midway Avenue if a lease can’t be secured at the Variety Store site.

Ritter said everything else, including inventory ordering, is in place, but “we just don’t know the location yet.”

Ritter owns Heaven-Sent Computer Services in Grand Coulee. Her parents have operated a non-retail business in western Washington for 16 years.

Siting a new store in Grand Coulee would be good news for the city, where officials have indicated their preference for another retail store for that building, or any vacant building. The city has no other interest, only in the fact that a retail outlet would provide some sales tax revenue for the city.

At the same time, the city wasn’t aware of the interest in someone putting in a retail shop. The city was dealing with the interest of an Electric City resident in putting an indoor storage business in the former Variety Store building. An emergency city council meeting was held recently to put a six-month moratorium on storage unit businesses.

This prompted a letter from Paul McLeod, who stated, “I cannot help but wonder how often an emergency moratorium on zoning has been prompted by an innocent query into municipal zoning already in force within any municipality.”

McLeod said the moratorium “looks a lot like a knee jerk reaction to such inquiry and as such appears unethical, discriminatory and possibly even illegal.”

There had been discussions at the city council that allowing the building to be occupied by a non-retail type business would deny the city sales tax revenue.

McLeod appeared before the council in this regard last Tuesday night, but when it appeared the city was moving ahead with its moratorium, he left.

The Variety Store closed out operations a couple of months ago and the building has been vacant since.