News Briefs

Rutland Region News Briefs

Explosive business opens at former Taco Bell site

RUTLAND TOWN—Chip Greeno is opening a C&C Fireworks store on the site of the long-unused Taco Bell across Route 7 from Home Depot, scheduled to open by Memorial Day, according to the Rutland Herald. He will bring a portable building to the property with plans to operate the store through the summer, closing as August ends. His Pittsford store will stay open through the month of October and may reopen in December.

The store is a virtual duplicate of the C&C Fireworks store Greeno opened in Pittsford a year ago. Both offer “consumer fireworks,” formerly known as Class C fireworks, in contrast to commercial fireworks, formerly Class B.

Shells and mortars, multiple devices, Roman candles, rockets, sparklers, firecrackers with no more than 50 milligrams of powder, and novelty items such as snakes, airplanes, grounds spinners, helicopters, fountains, and party poppers all fit in the consumer fireworks category, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.

All his permits are in order, the town Select Board unanimously approved his application May 2. He’s passed inspection by the town fire marshal and all other inspectors, Greeno said May 11.

Project Vision is a model worth copying statewide

State Drug Prevention Policy Director Jolinda LaClair praised Project Vision at the group’s May 11 meeting, saying it is a model that the state intends to reproduce across Vermont. Beginning in 2012, the group has grown to more than 300 individuals, representing more than 100 organizations.

Newly appointed to oversee the 21-member Governor’s Opioid Coordination Council which held its first meeting earlier in the week, LaClair noted that many anti-opioid programs do not coordinate with law enforcement. Her new role is to bridge gaps between groups and agencies, especially state agencies, assisting in policy development, Alan Keays reported in VTDigger.

Students solve murder mystery

Criminal justice students at the College of St. Joseph think they solved a previously open cold case, having investigated the suspicious death of Washington, D.C., attorney Robert Wone in August 2006.

In a May 5 press release, the college announced that nine students taking the Criminal Justice Seminar course from Lisa Chalidze believe that no one killed the 32-year-old before he was found dead at the home of a college friend.

The three men who lived at the house said they believed someone had entered the house and killed Wone. The students concluded that Wone died from wrongly practiced acupuncture.

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