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Forsyth County News
J Your "Hometown Paper" Since 1908 J
Vol. 93, No. 190
A restaurant safe not so safe for third time
By Steven H. Pollak
Staff Writer
Investigators arc searching for the bur
glar, or, more likely, burglars, who took a
safe from Spondivit’s II on Atlanta Highway
in Cumming sometime Sunday evening or
Monday morning.
It’s at least the third time this year that
thieves have made off with a large safe from
a popular local restaurant.
Glen Gagne, corporate chef and chief
executive officer of Spondivit’s Inc., the par
ent company that owns both the Cumming
restaurant as well as the original Spondivit’s
on Virginia Avenue in Atlanta, said the stolen
safe contained only credit card receipts when
it was taken.
The thieves came into the restaurant
through a hole in the wall toward the back of
Photo/Audra Perry
Dairy Queen employees last week prepared to say good-bye to
their old downtown landmark and say hello to a new and expanded
DQ that has been built next door. The former building will be torn
down to provide parking space for the state-of-the-art restaurant.
Cumming food landmark
closes for move next door
By Austin Rhodes
For the Forsyth County News
After almost 50 years in one
location, Cumming’s first fast-food
restaurant is moving almost 50
feet.
Dairy Queen, a downtown icon,
is super sizing to a shiny new build
ing adjacent to the site where it has
operated since 1954.
The Willingham family operates
the franchise, and, notwithstanding
a fire in the early’6os that forced a
rebuild, they say it is the biggest
upgrade under their watch.
Bill Willingham took over the
eatery 38 years ago and, while he
Country Cupboard stores to be auctioned
Highest
bid wins
Convenience stores
in Forsyth County
that were operated
by Swifty Serve
Corp, and are now
up for sale are at
these locations:
•601 Dahlonega
Hwy.
• 2320 Canton Hwy.
• 337 Canton Rd.
• 2775 Antioch Rd.
• 725 Lanier Pkwy.
• 2595 Buford Dam
Rd.
• 3275 Dahlonega
Hwy.
• 325 Peachtree
Pkwy.
•1515 Peachtree
Pkwy.
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ißin
Your "Hometown Paper" Since 1908
the building on the southwest comer.
To make the opening, they peeled back
part of the building’s tin siding and cut
through the interior wood and insulation to
reach the restaurant’s office, which is
cramped with furniture. Gagne said he does
n’t think it was by chance that the thieves
happened to come through the wall at one of
the only spots where they would not run into
a desk or cabinet on the other side.
“It was definitely somebody who’s been
in the office before,” he said.
The restaurant was closed all day Sunday,
but an employee had been inside painting
until about 7:30 that evening. When the man
ager arrived Monday morning at 8. she
found the office in disarray and the safe
gone.
Gagne said the safe, which weighed more
END OF A SWEET ERA
says it is hard to leave the memo
ries behind, he is looking forward
to the new digs.
“There is both sad and good in a
move like this, but we arc all look
ing forward to the new place,” he
remarked. “Change is good.”
Willingham’s son. Wyatt, is in
charge of the day-to-day operation
now. When he started, he split time
between serving ice cream cones
and his studies at Cumming
Elementary School.
“I was 11 years old when my
Dad bought the place,” he recalled.
See QUEEN, Page 3A
By Phillip Hermann
Business Editor
If you have ever wanted to own a con
venience store or two or three, now is your
chance.
The trustee overseeing the bankruptcy
case involving Swifty Serve Corp. the
former parent company of Country
Cupboard has hired National Real
Estate Clearinghouse to handle the sale of
more than 500 stores in the United States.
Os the 116 stores in Georgia, there are
nine in Cumming, three in Dawsonville,
two in Gainesville, seven in Dahlonega
and four in Canton.
NREC spokeswoman Janet Treuhaft
said Tuesday that there has been an
“immense” amount of interest in the stores
which will be sold “lock, stock and bar
rel” via a sealed bid process. Winning bids
will be announced Dec. 12.
“All the store sites will be treated sepa
rately, and bids will be judged on that
basis,” she explained. “Therefore, this kind
of thing could be very attractive to retirees
INDEX
Abby.. lOA
Classifieds 3B
Comics 10A
Deaths 2 A
Government 4A
Horoscope 10A
Opinion •••••••••••■•••■•••■■•••••••a 11A
Sports . 8A
THURSDAY November 21,2002
who want to start a small business or to
young people who are looking to get out
on their own. We also have a number of
large corporations who have expressed
interest in these stores; so the interest is
coming pretty much across the board.”
Treuhaft declined to name specific
companies showing interest other than to
say it “could be” well-known firms that
operate other convenience store brands.
Once bids have been received in
December, Treuhaft said it will take the
trustee and NREC consultants two to three
weeks to evaluate the offers and to deter
mine the winners.
Following approval of the bankruptcy
court, winning bidders will be notified.
The process could be completed by the
end of January 2003, Treuhaft said.
NREC is sponsoring a seminar for
prospective buyers on Friday, Nov. 22, at
the Westin Hotel near Hartsfield Atlanta
International Airport. The seminar begins
at 10 a.m. The company also will allow
See STORES Page 2A
Government
Szabo to
help keep
Forsyth beautiful.
Page 4A
than 200 pounds and was not bolted down,
was the only thing missing. But, the comput
er in the office had been dumped on the floor
and several file cabinets had been pushed
over.
The earlier local safe heists at Norman’s
Landing and Buckhead Brewery had been
preceded by a visit from a man posing as a
BellSouth employee who said he was check
ing phone lines in the area. Investigators
believe the man was actually scouting the
locations for the later burglaries.
Gagne said he did not know of anything
similar happening prior to the break-in at
Spondivits.
Bill Norman, co-owner of Norman’s
Landing, said he thinks restaurateurs need to in-
See SAFE, Page 3A
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Sports
NASCAR champion
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Photos/Jonathan Phillips
The hole cut through the wall of Spondivit’s
restaurant in Cumming, where thieves made
off with the safe overnight Sunday, has been
patched. The brazen theft of the safe was the
third such crime in local restaurants this year.
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, Photo/ Jonathan Phillips
A crowning moment
Mary Katherine Fink, escorted by her father, Royal Fink, is
crowned Forsyth Central’s homecoming queen. Last year’s
queen, Alicia Green, returned to crown Fink on Friday, Nov. 8.
Possible Rain
High in the mid-50s.
Low in the low 40s.
Council
rejects
tax offer
of county
Cumming officials
want an 80/20 split
By Susan Norman
Editor
The Cumming City Council on Tuesday night
rejected the recent offer from the Forsyth County
Board of Supervisors to keep the city’s share of local
sales tax revenues at 15 percent.
In a 4-0-1 vote, with City
Councilman Lewis Ledbetter
absent, the council agreed to seek
instead a 20-percent share of the
millions of dollars in annual rev
enues collected in this county.
Councilman Ralph Perry made the
motion to reject the commission
ers’ offer, and Councilman Rupert
Sexton seconded the motion.
Twenty percent is halfway Gravitt
between what the county now
receives and the 25-percent share that city officials
sought the last time the revenue split was negotiated,
said Mayor H. Ford Gravitt.
The council’s vote followed a lengthy pitch by the
See TAXES, Page 2A
LAKE LANIER LEVELS
Date Level
Nov. 16 1063.34 ft
Nov. 17 1063.66 ft
Nov. 18 1063.78 ft
Nov. 19 1063.86 ft
Full 1071.00 ft
USIHCSS
iday Expo a success
* JI i