Golden Valley Rejects Super America Petition To Stay Open 24 Hours

The Golden Valley City Council denied a petition by Super America to leave their facility at open .

Citing increased traffic and noise in the area, the council did not see a compelling reason to approve the change—particularly since it is just a few blocks from a station that already is open 24 hours.

“It’s an imposition on the neighborhood,” said Councilman Ben Schaffer. “I don’t see a benefit.”

The Planning Commission last month recommended the City Council approve the plan.

Northern Tier Retail, Super America's owners, sent a representative and the store manager to Tuesday's City Council meeting. They proposed that in return for staying open overnight, they would do twice-monthly trash pick-ups. They also said they have voluntarily discontinued use of their pump PA system at 10 p.m. Both suggestions came from a community meeting the city asked the business to hold before they continued with their proposal.

Residents countered with evidence of more inconvenience than was being allowed for. The property manager of the building adjacent to the station came with a bag of trash he demurely held up for the council.

“I picked this up this morning,” Richard Quam said. The owner of the building, Mildred Hansen of Minneapolis, said she was opposed to the change because of concerns about safety, property values and the composition of the neighborhood.

“Just the presence of a 24-hour gas station leaves an environment like Minneapolis,” she said. Citing the 24-hour gas stations on Lake Street, Hansen painted a picture of people coming and going at all hours of the night, increasing the noise in the neighborhood. “It’s just more commotion than a community of 55-year-old seniors can accept. It would be a black eye on Golden Valley."

The council mostly agreed with the community members, some of whom yelled from the crowd as staff discussed volume controls on the PA system.

“You can hear it from my house!” one woman called out. Though there was much debate about what fire code would require in this situation, no one on the council supported Super America’s petition.

“We get a lot of complaints about noise; it’s the hardest thing we deal with,” summarized Mayor Linda Loomis, “This is a residential neighborhood, and this 24-hour operation is not compatible with that.”