"It's worse than Starbucks," claimed Neudeck, 24, a clerk at Handy Pantry in Mattituck. "I'd rather drink hospital coffee."
Mind you, he may be a bit biased - the Handy Pantry is just a few hundred feet down Main Road from the proposed site of a new 7-Eleven. The store would replace the Citgo station on the corner of Main Road and Factory Avenue in Mattituck, south of the Mattituck Plaza.
And Handy Pantry is just one of several businesses in the hamlet circulating a petition against the convenience store.
"We feel a 7-Eleven, 24-hour, seven-day-a-week store on Main Road and Factory Avenue would be detrimental to the community, as it would increase traffic ... and would not benefit the community in any way," the petition says.
Mattituck resident Art Tillman has been distributing and collecting petition signatures for almost two weeks. The Citgo station's parent company, Gama Deer Park Inc., applied to convert the structure into a 7-Eleven, and the Planning Board has been studying site plans.
Last month, Southold's Zoning Board of Appeals denied the applicant a variance to build a 750-square-foot addition to the existing building because the proposed expansion did not conform to code.
Now, it goes back to the Planning Board.
"It's possible the applicant may choose to expand in a conforming way, and that would be a whole different situation," said ZBA member Leslie Weisman. "We try to be fair and democratic with the process."
But to LeRoy Heyliger, the whole situation isn't fair. A deacon at Unity Baptist Church on Factory Avenue since 1955, Mr. Heyliger passed around petitions at Sunday's service. He said his main concern is increased traffic, making a busy residential street without sidewalks even more dangerous.
"Pedestrians come out of The Cottages at Mattituck, they walk to the movies and shop at Waldbaum's," he said. "There are women pushing baby carriages down the middle of the street ... We have not addressed these problems."
Mr. Heyliger also said a 24-hour convenience store would become an all-night hangout for the teenagers who already gather nightly at Mattituck Plaza, increasing the need for monitoring underage drinking.
Michael Avella, owner of Love Lane Kitchen, agreed that a 7-Eleven would turn into a late-night nuisance and he, too, encouraged his customers to sign the petition.
"But it is a convenience store, after all," he said, adding that with CVS, McDonald's and Starbucks already in place on Main Road, "floodgates" for more franchise already have been opened.
"There's no going back," he said.
And that's OK with Nicole Cundiff, an 18-year-old waitress at Love Lane Kitchen. She said it's about time Mattituck had a 24-hour convenience store for night owls like herself.
"What if you want a soda or coffee after midnight?" she asked. "Driving to Cutchogue is a pain in the butt," she said, referring to the 7-Eleven closest to Mattituck.
Ms. Weisman said that town government can't prevent a convenience store from being built on that site simply because it's a franchise.
"By state law, we can't control what goes in there, but we can control size," she said, adding that the ZBA did take into account the concerns of the people living in the residential areas on Factory Avenue.
Though the petition has amplified these concerns, Michael Bourguignon, co-owner of Mattituck Village Market on Love Lane, said he doesn't think it will stop the store from eventually moving in.
"Do I want it there? Not really," he said. "Do I think it could hurt business? Possibly. But competition is competition."
eschultz@timesreview.com