Do You Remember? Danbury considers limiting number of saloons to 40

From The News-Times files

25 years ago

Thermometers edged up to a high of only 6 or 7 degrees all day today (Jan. 22, 1985), with a wind chill factor of about minus 20. The average high for this date is 34.

Throughout the day the cold caused problems, from frostbite to empty fuel tanks. Electricity consumption for New England reached another all-time high, the third week in a row that the record has been broken.

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Construction of a new Route 7-Interstate 84 interchange in Danbury will take another step forward this month, when the state begins seeking bids for the $33 million project. On the present schedule, the interchange will be completed about the time the new Danbury Fair mall opens in October 1986.

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The legislative push for an improved Route 7 from Brookfield to New Milford breathes fresh life into a project that has lain dormant since the late 1970s. State Department of Transportation officials say immediate improvements to the existing road are necessary, but the long-term solution is still an expressway from the end of Super 7 south of the Four Corners intersection in Brookfield to north of the traffic circle in New Milford.

State Sen. James McLaughlin, R-Woodbury, who is the Senate chairman of the Joint Finance Committee, said he is pushing to get a Super 7 built by 1991. His efforts are supported by Sen. Adela Eads, R-Kent; Rep. Oskar Rogg, R-New Milford; and Rep. M. Jodi Rell, R-Brookfield.

A variety of ideas for Super 7 have been tossed around for nearly two decades, but legislators believe the most feasible is a limited access, two-lane road running several hundred yards to the west of the existing Route 7.

Exit and entrance ramps would be built off the new expressway to connect with the existing Route 7 at the Four Corners intersection in Brookfield and the Lanesville and Sullivan Road intersection in New Milford.

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About 100 area residents joined protestors in Washington, D.C., this week for an anti-abortion rally and march on the 12th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion.

They boarded buses early in the morning in New Milford, Newtown and Ridgefield and joined members of the Right-to-Life chapters from throughout Connecticut and the nation at the Washington Monument just before the noon rally, according to Joanne Kemperer, chairman of the Right-to-Life chapter in Newtown.

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A surge in the purchase of business equipment and automobiles last year created an unexpectedly high increase in the city's tax rolls. More than $18 million in personal property, which is business equipment, and $15 million in automobiles were added to the city's Grand List. This year's Grand List grew by $59 million, to $1.2 billion.

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A Swedish firm, Chromatics Inc., that had Gov. William A. O'Neill's support to build in Connecticut has decided to save money by building in Bethel's Francis J. Clarke Industrial Park instead of in Brookfield.

The company manufactures colored plastics used in wire insulation and in some medical equipment. It paid a deposit last week for 4.2 acres at the yet-to-be-developed industrial park.

It was the fifth company to buy an option for one of the 15 available lots last week. Chromatics warehouse supervisor Robert Nota was one of about 20 people who camped out on the snow-covered lawn of the Bethel Economic Development Commission office before the options sale.

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A 25-year-old Ridgefield man, Air Force 2nd Lt. Paul Cocks, a copilot, is one of 21 Americans reported missing after an Air Force transport plane went down in the Caribbean off the eastern coast of Honduras on Tuesday (Jan. 22, 1985).

50 years ago

John J. Scanlon has been appointed manager of the two Stanley Warner movie theaters on Main Street -- the Palace and the Empress. He succeeds Harold Nelson of Bridgewater, who has been manager for the past seven years.

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Ground is to be broken today (Jan. 18, 1960) for Brookfield's first set of garden apartments. William J. Devlin of Brookfield Center has announced that he has purchased two acres of land located on the northeast corner of Pocono and Silvermine roads from the Howe Furniture Co. of Norwalk, and will erect four garden apartment buildings on the site.

John C. Stefanko of Newtown will be the builder. Devlin has built houses and apartments in Westchester County, N.Y.

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The interest of Danbury in scheduled air service will be well represented in Washington this week before the Civil Aeronautics Board. Representing the Chamber of Commerce Air Service Committee are its chairman, Paul F. Cole, of the Bard-Parker Co., and Graham Wagenseil, operator of a travel agency.

100 years ago

The hearing by the county commissioners upon the petition for the reduction of the number of saloons in Danbury to 40 was commenced this morning (Jan. 21, 1910). The Rev. Walter Shanley of St. Peter Church was the first witness.