A road project is forcing George Cameron out of the family store, built in 1890. He vows to reopen it, but he can't take the history with him. George Cameron usually feels good when he gives his customers dynamite deals on beer and booze.
But the sale he started Monday at his Inver Grove Heights liquor store is hard to swallow.
"This is our forced-move sale," Cameron said as he pointed to a sign that announces Cameron's Warehouse Liquors is offering 20 percent off wine and 10 percent off liquor. "And our thank-you-customers sale."
The store, which has been in the "old village" since the 1890s, will close May 30 so Dakota County can rebuild Concord Boulevard. It's one of several pieces of land the county acquired through eminent domain.
Cameron, 59, is not going away quietly. The fourth-generation business owner is fighting the county over compensation for his property and building, which has served as a feed store, grocery store and village post office.
He vows to reopen but isn't sure when or where.
"I'm not happy with this move," said Cameron, noting that the steady traffic on Concord is good for business. "This is my livelihood."
Tom Anton, Dakota County design engineer, said the county has tried to minimize the amount of private property affected by the road project, which includes adding sidewalks and straightening the road.
Owners of four of the six major properties taken were willing to sell, he said.
"We tried not to impact the properties on both sides (of Concord)," he said. "We already owned a property — a former gas station — just south of Cameron's, so we made the hard choice to make a total acquisition of his land. It was not an easy decision."
A Family Business / Cameron's mother, Laurice, helps her son around the store six days a week, mostly doing paperwork.
"I like to say that this is where I come to rest," said Laurice Cameron, 86, who raised 11 children.
Built as a feed store in 1890, Cameron's building at 6566 Concord Blvd. is one of a handful that remain from the Village of Inver Grove Heights, local historian Lois Glewwe said.
Cameron's is believed to be the city's oldest continuously owned family business, Glewwe said.
Laurice's husband, also named George, was born in an apartment above the store and, like his father, ran the business all his life. He also was on the village council from 1947 to 1952 and served as mayor of Inver Grove Heights from 1968 to 1972. He died in 2003.
"We were just this little town," she said, "and people would always come in to talk to us about what they liked and what they didn't like. So George ran for the village council and then mayor."
Her son's earliest memories of working at the store are carrying groceries for customers and sorting soda bottles in the dark basement.
"My dad gave me my job, I think, when I was around 12," George Cameron said, then laughed. "I'm sure it was an easy decision for him."
Cameron's three brothers and seven sisters worked at the store, then eventually moved on to other things.
Over the years, the family has expanded the building twice. It's now about 4,500 square feet.
"We were a full grocery store," Cameron said, "with a meat department with three butchers, and produce and everything people needed."
In 1972, when business was hit hard by sewer and water construction that closed Concord, they switched to liquor only.
"We had to try something," he said. "And in 1972, this would have been considered a fairly big liquor store. Now, it's about average."
Bernie Schrom, of Newport, stopped by the store Wednesday to buy cans of Hires Root Beer, which he said is hard to find. "I had to quit drinking the regular beer many years ago," he said, then patted his stomach.
Schrom, 79, started shopping at Cameron's in the 1950s after he took a job at the Swift & Co. meatpacking plant in South St. Paul. He later became a South St. Paul police officer.
"This was the only place with groceries on my way home from work," he said. "It's always been the old standby."
Price Dispute / In June, a Dakota County district judge ruled the county could take land from a dozen landowners who were holding out, including Cameron.
The county appraised Cameron's land at $560,300 in 2007, but Cameron balked at that number. A second appraisal pegged it at $580,000.
On Thursday, a three-member panel of arbitrators determined Cameron should receive $655,000, said his attorney, Dan Biersdorf.
Biersdorf said Cameron is likely to appeal, and the issue will go to trial in district court.
"The issue of just compensation hasn't played itself out because he hasn't moved, and we don't know yet the extent of his losses," he said.
The case could end up in the state court of appeals, he said, because of a provision the Legislature enacted in 2006 that sets a minimum level of compensation when a property is taken for public use.
Road construction crews are creeping closer to Cameron's store every day.
The county completed the first of the project's three phases, a half-mile stretch in South St. Paul from Interstate 494 to just south of Dale Place, in 2007. The second phase, which includes Cameron's land and will run from 65th Street south to Cooper Path, is under way. In all, about four miles of Concord will be redone.
Cameron's customers are concerned.
"Everybody for the last six months has been asking what is going to happen, where we are going, and I don't know what to tell them," employee Cheryla Breakfield said. "I think people really feel sad. This place has been here forever, and they hate to see it go."
Cameron said he wants to rebuild or move into a new building, possibly in Inver Grove Heights, for his customers and his dozen employees.
"I told the county that we've been operating for 115 years," he said. "I said, 'That's a good streak ... and I don't plan on breaking it.' "
Wherever the liquor store ends up, Schrom said, he and the other customers would follow.
"I wish them the best of luck with everything," he said.
Nick Ferraro can be reached at 651-228-2173.
