By Curt Peterson, Standard Correspondent
QUECHEE — Sheryl Trainor, owner of Quechee Mobil Mart at the end of the off-ramp at Exit 1 from I-89, called her business “The Gateway to Woodstock.”
For everyone approaching from the interstate or on Route 4 the gas station with a convenience store and gifts had become a milestone, for many, a regular stop for gasoline or provisions.
Anyone might have thought the store was a gold mine for Trainor, who has owned the business since 1995.
So the transient and the envious were surprised on Tuesday, May 17 when Amalusia, Inc. DBA Quechee Mobil Mart closed its doors and quickly filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy status – a legal move in which a trustee is appointed to liquidate the business’s assets any net proceeds are funneled to creditors.
Trainor’s bankruptcy filing lists assets of approximately $50,000, and debts between $100,000 and $500,000. The list of 33 creditors includes Casella Waste, FairPoint Communications, People’s United Bank and the Vermont Lottery.
Jeff Cavender at the Vermont Lottery said that Trainor gave them “plenty of notice that she was going to be closing the store.”
His people went to the location and retrieved “inventory,” meaning unsold tickets.
“If the store is going to be vacant for any length of time,” Cavender said, “we would take out the machines and dispensers as well. But in this case we knew the store would be reopening.”
Cavender added that Trainor’s obligation to the Lottery was “not that much.”
According to Trainor, “the biggest single factor leading to the financial situation at my business was the prevalence of credit and debit card use in today’s society.”
Mike Pearce, owner of Mike’s Store a Hartland Mobil fuel station, deli and convenience store also near an interstate exit, echoes Trainor’s complaints about credit card fees.
“Ten years ago, credit card purchases were less than 30 percent of our business,” Pearce said. “Today most of our sales are paid for with plastic.”
Credit card companies such as American Express, MasterCard and Visa charge the merchant between $1 and $4, called “swipe fees,” every time a card transaction is processed, no matter the amount of the sale.
“The profit margins are so low on a lot of our merchandise,” Pearce said, “that on small sales we actually lose money because of the swipe fees.”
“The American public is deceived into thinking that the convenience of not carrying cash and the benefits of cash back and airline points have no negative consequences, only benefits,” Trainor said. “They are wrong.”
Credit card fees, she said, were the second biggest expense in her business, after labor costs.
New England drivers have recent memories of gasoline prices approaching $4 a gallon, which many assume is a boon for people such as Trainor and Pearce as retail fuel merchants. But, Trainor said, the profit at the pump is smaller than most people think.
“In a business where the bulk of my sales (gasoline) yielded little more than pennies per gallon,” Trainor said, “losing half or more of those pennies in swipe fees and other charges to the big banks and credit card companies, guaranteed a broken business model.”
Finding the store closed must have been a surprise for many local people and travelers who have relied on Quechee Mobil over the years. And Trainor herself may not have realized the imminence of her closing. As recently as May 4 she posted an employment ad on the store’s Facebook page offering a $500 signing bonus.
Besides credit card fees, Trainor has said she faced staffing challenges, and that Vermont’s business environment has become difficult for small merchants.
Trainor has successfully navigated other business challenges at Quechee Mobil Mart – in January 2011 an employee opening the store for the morning discovered the interior was on fire, and it was five months before repairs were completed and the store reopened for business.
Some time prior to 2015, according to Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation data, there was a hazardous materials cleanup at the site that cost the Petroleum Cleanup Fund $139,230.13, an event about which neither Trainor nor the DEC provided any details.
Quechee Mobil Mart occupied a 3,490 square-foot building on 1.67 acres. Summit Distributing, LLC of Lebanon, a major fuel delivery company in the area, holds the leasehold interest.
On Tuesday May 24 there were three vehicles parked at the store and people working inside. Summit had two sets of signs at the location. One announced they are hiring employees for operating the store. The other said, “Sorry for the inconvenience, we are opening under new management soon!”
This article first appeared in the March 26, 2016 edition of the Vermont Standard.