Wawa

THE DRIVER OF a bread truck that sat in a Southwest Philly Wawa parking lot for nearly 40 minutes wasn't delivering bread - but police say he had dough in mind. Police on Monday arrested Keith Jones, 55, of Kingsessing, on charges that he stole 513 gallons of diesel gas worth about $2,000 from the Wawa at Bartram and Island avenues Feb. 4. Jones, operating a Stroehmann bread delivery truck he'd purchased at auction about two weeks earlier, siphoned the gas from a station ground pump into a large storage tank, police said.

The West Conshohocken Zoning Board approved a variance Wednesday night to allow the construction of the borough's first 24-hour convenience store, at the site of a boarded-up gas station. A standing-room-only crowd of 35 packed the borough hall as John I. McMahon Sr., attorney for CK Acquisitions Inc., presented a plan to convert the former Exxon station at Front and Crawford Streets into a Wawa store. CK Acquisitions Inc. would lease the property to Wawa. George Karakelian, who runs the Sunoco station next to the proposed site, said the Wawa would be a welcome change from the eyesore of the vacant Exxon station, which has been boarded up since 1985.

For a convenience-store chain that takes the postal-carrier mantra to the retailing extreme - on the job in any weather, plus holidays - what happened to Wawa in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy can be called a crisis of unprecedented scope. Nearly a third of Wawa's 601 stores - 194 in all - were without power Tuesday, most of them closed and in areas most affected by hobbled utility systems in New Jersey, Southeastern Pennsylvania, and Delaware. While Wawa was not alone in its struggle - Giant Food Stores said 33 of its supermarkets in the Philadelphia suburbs and as far west as Reading were open but subsisting on generators and ice-packed trucks in parking lots - Wawa's troubles were acutely startling.

The long-awaited decision on a proposed Wawa convenience store near the township business campus was postponed this week because only one member of the three-member board was available to vote on it. After 14 years of perfect attendance, Francis X. Walsh, Horsham Zoning Hearing Board chairman, missed the township zoning meeting Monday night. Board Vice Chairman Ted Truver said personal problems had prevented Walsh from attending. Truver would not elaborate, and Walsh could not be reached for comment.

Albert Marzano, 89, who designed the goose logo for the Wawa convenience-store chain, died of heart failure Sunday at his Philadelphia home. Mr. Marzano, who attended South Philadelphia High School, took classes in the 1930s at the Graphic Sketch Club and the Plastic Club, both in Philadelphia. But, his son Anton said, "he was largely self-taught. " During his Army service in World War II, Mr. Marzano illustrated military posters and signs, his son said. His work was so good that it "kept him out of combat.

Authorities in Radnor Township are seeking a tall, husky man who held up the Wawa store in Wayne by brandishing a box cutter or razor at the store's clerk early this morning. The man banged on the counter, then pulled the weapon from his white hooded sweatshirt and said in a calm, soft voice, "Give me the money," as two other clerks and two shoppers watched in the store at 213 W. Lancaster Ave. The female clerk handed over an undisclosed amount of cash from the register and was not hurt.

Wawa's next boss learned business at his dad's car wash, and drinks his coffee black. Cup a day. Maybe two. "This company isn't about the CEO. We have 18,000 associates, and this is really about them," the workers Wawa relies on to keep heavy users coming back at 600 stores, says Chris Gheysens, Wawa's past chief financial officer and current president, who is scheduled to take over as chief executive when Howard Stoeckel retires at year's end....

Police are investigating a report of a stabbing at a Wawa in Cinnaminson, Burlington County earlier this morning. Police were dispatched to the convenience store on the 2100 block of Church Road about 7:30 a.m. One person was transported to Cooper University Hospital in Camden, but that person's identity and condition have not been released. Check back for details as they develop.

A visit to Wawa and Sheetz stores in Bethlehem, one of the few places in Pennsylvania where the convenience-store chains compete, finds both committed partisans and practical choices. "I use them both," said limo driver Bob Stahley, gassing up at the Sheetz on Schoenersville Road in Bethlehem, across the road and just up the hill from the Wawa. "I like Wawa's soft pretzels. But this side of the road is on the way to New York. " "They copy each other," said Charles Beegle, in a Pirates cap, in his Cable Service Co. truck.

Wawa has paid $12,500 to a Cumberland County man to settle claims that he was improperly denied service at a company store while accompanied by his service dog, state authorities announced Wednesday. Patrick Stark, 33, went to a Wawa store in Millville, where he lives, on June 13 to buy a sandwich, and was told he would not be served unless he took his dog outside. The self-employed glass artist explained that the animal, a Queensland heeler wearing special tags, was permitted in the store by law, but a store manager told him to leave.