Pinckney — This beautiful little village in Livingston County has 2,400 residents, one stoplight, and three gas stations.
They’re about to get one more gas station, and that’s driving a lot of people here absolutely bonkers. It’s the kind of small-town drama that plays out on social media and in the local diner, and seemingly everyone has an opinion.
In Pinckney, the issue is this: There’s an old Rite Aid pharmacy building that’s been sitting empty for almost two years, and a Livingston County company called Mugg & Bopps wants to turn it into a gas station.
Not just any old gas station, either. A huge one with snacks, food, a massive beer cooler, and a full-service Dunkin’ Donuts. The kind of gas station that people either love or hate to see in their town.
The Pinckney situation closely mirrors what’s happening in Livonia, where the Sheetz people want to turn that town’s old Rite Aid into one of their gas stations, and some locals are rebelling. There are old, rotting Rite Aid stores everywhere in Michigan, but God forbid you want to turn them into bright, new gas stations.
In Pinckney, the issue isn’t so much Mugg & Bopps as it is the fact that they already have three gas stations in this little town, and some don’t think they need a fourth. Especially since one of the three gas stations is another Mugg & Bopps, and they don’t think they need two Muggses & Boppses (or whatever the plural is) just a few blocks away from each other. It should be written in the Constitution, for Pete’s sake.
The anti-Mugg & Bopps crowd would much rather the old Rite Aid be turned into a bowling alley or a recreation center or a restaurant or anything but another gas station. The world would certainly be a much better place if we all got to decide what other people did with their property, wouldn’t it?
If you’re not from Livingston County, it might be helpful for you to have a little primer about Mugg & Bopps, because they’re a major player here.
The company was founded way back in 1960 by a man named Darwin Barr, who was called “Bopp” by his kids. He married a woman named Margaret Davis, who was called “Muggsy.” Darwin thusly figured that “Mugg & Bopps” would be a catchy name for his new gas station. He sold the company in 1985 to his son-in-law, Todd Lekander, who still owns it today.
Mugg & Bopps used to be mainly located in Howell, but in the last couple decades, they’ve been spreading like wildfire. They’ve done this by gobbling up existing gas stations and rebranding them as Mugg & Bopps or building huge new stores like the one that’s coming to Pinckney.
They’re all over Livingston County now, and they’ve also spread to several neighboring communities, including Stockbridge, Dexter, Chelsea, Perry, Morrice, and more. The big stores are Livingston County’s version of a Sheetz or a Buc-ee’s, on a slightly smaller scale. A lot of them have a Dunkin’ Donuts or a Subway inside. They sell groceries and rugs. The new stores are all big and bright and have a bunch of stuff inside.
People in Livingston County tend to either love them (because they have so much stuff) or hate them (because they’re starting to become a monopoly). As a Howell resident, I’m on Team Mugg & Bopps. We have three of them almost within walking distance of my house, and I love them.
I also spend a lot of time in Pinckney (where we go church and my wife works), so I can’t wait for the new Mugg & Bopps. And almost anything would be better than the crappy-looking Rite Aid store that’s there now.
If you want to hear from the people who AREN’T on Team Mugg & Bopps, though, just head on over to the “Pinckney Community” Facebook page, where the new gas station is an almost daily topic of discussion. A recent post drew about 200 comments at last count, with sentiment running about 70-30 in opposition to the new gas station. Among the comments:
John Fry: “Just what Pinckney needs: 2 Mugg and Bopps 2 blocks apart, and if I had my choice of Dunkin’ Donuts or Pinckney Bakery, it wouldn’t be Dunkin’ Donuts.”
Joshua Lynch: “Yayy, another gas station across from a gas station.”
Chris Mcclelland: “Well, another stupid business in Pinckney I will not be supporting,”
Malcolm Lincoln: “Stupid ….. I guess politicians don’t care about what WE WANT???!!”
To be fair, there were also some commenters who made the obvious point that if you wanted something else there, you should have bought the building.
To the victor goes the spoils. And the donuts.
The other monkey wrench in this whole discussion concerns the BP gas station that sits right across Dexter Street from the proposed new Mugg & Bopps. People say that a small town like Pinckney doesn’t need two gas stations right across the street from each other, but the BP station might be the only business in town that’s actually more controversial than the new Mugg & Bopps.
That’s due to the fact that the BP’s convenience store proudly boasts of being home to the area’s largest (and totally legal) selection of bongs, pipes, and other drug paraphernalia. If you want to blaze up tonight, you’ve come to the right place! That store is right down the street from Pinckney High School, and plenty of people hate the fact that a bong shop is the first store the students see when they drive away from school every day. A lot of Pinckneyites boycott the BP on principle.
So that’s the situation here. On one side of the street, we’ll have a Mugg & Bopps that people hate because it’s just another gas station. On the other side of the street, we have a BP that people hate because it caters to the stoner crowd. Donuts and coffee on one side of the street, bongs and rolling papers on the other. Choose wisely.
The new Mugg & Bopps received its final approval from the Pinckney Planning Commission on Jan. 5, so barring an unforeseen roadblock, we’ll be pumping gas and slamming down crullers in a few months.
And the discussion will no doubt still be raging on Facebook.
Buddy Moorehouse teaches documentary filmmaking at Hillsdale College.
