The Buc-ee's Stops Here: Why the Iconic Chain Is Facing a Backlash East of the Sabine

Buc-ee’s! Home of the interstate highway system’s most gleaming bathrooms! Buc-ee’s! The birthplace of Beaver Nuggets snacks, home to an incredible array of jerkies, land of infinite fruit snacks! Buc-ee’s! The mischievous beaver mascot, taunting motorists from billboards with come-ons like “Only 262 Miles to Buc-ee’s. You Can Hold It.” It is a Texas icon, a brand to which many in the Lone Star State feel a fierce attachment, a beloved intermediary between our state’s far-flung destinations. Buc-ee’s!

Also: a place some outside Texas—and even some here—would apparently prefer not to have as a neighbor. Over the past several months, the chain has been embroiled in a battle with residents of the North Carolina community of Efland, about 25 minutes west of the college town of Chapel Hill, where some feared that a planned Buc-ee’s would worsen traffic congestion, pollute a protected watershed, and offend aesthetic sensitivities. The protest came as Buc-ee’s expands across the South, with new stores opening in Alabama, Florida, and Georgia, as well as North Carolina. Communities are struggling with the Buc-ee’s paradox: it’s a great place to take a break during your journey to wherever, but some folks tend to get nervous when it decides to move in next door—or even a half-hour away.

The fight in North Carolina came to a head on Friday, when Buc-ee’s dropped plans to build one of its supersized travel centers after demands by local officials that it shrink the size of the project and agree to add more electric-vehicle charging stations, among other requirements. “Unfortunately, Orange County Commissioners were not receptive to 200 jobs with starting pay of $15 per hour and full benefits, more than $1 million in direct tax revenue, and multiple services that would create additional jobs, tax revenue and benefit a sector of the community that has been historically underserved,” Buc-ee’s said in a statement that served as a bit of a parting shot.

The Buc-ee’s proposed for exit 160 in Efland was truly massive, even by the company’s outsized standards: a 64,000-square-foot beast with sixty gas pumps and a 250-foot car wash. A sign featuring the beaver’s grinning visage was to tower above the highway, skirting local regulations. And because of zoning ordinances at the proposed site, the county held all the cards: the site Buc-ee’s hoped to develop was zoned for an office or manufacturing business, and the company was left asking the county, which controls zoning in unincorporated Efland, to loosen restrictions.

Read more: https://www.texasmonthly.com/politics/bucees-backlash-texas-gas-station/