Harvester Avenue

Area youngsters were able to get in a little hockey practice today on Harvester Avenue, where resident Kevin Hamilton built a small hockey rink. Hamilton, who coaches two youth hockey teams, said he constructed the rink out of a wood frame, a plastic sheet base and slowly builds up the ice over time, adding a little water over several days.

A Batavia man previously accused of stealing from local stores is in trouble again -- this time for allegedly burglarizing a business on Harvester Avenue and forging checks from that business.

Michael J. Piasta, 30, of 415 East Main St., was arrested by Batavia Police following an investigation and charged with burglary, 3rd, and criminal possession of a forged instrument.

Piasta is accused of breaking into a business at 56 Harvester Ave. and stealing checks and credit cards.

He allegedly tried to cash two business checks at area banks and is accused of using the credit card at various locations.

Piasta was jailed without bail.

Previously, Piasta allegedly stole some DVDs from Pandora's Boxx and fled on foot. He was the subject of a short manhunt at St. Joseph Cemetery off of Buell Street. Also, he was previously accused of stealing beer from Wilson Farms on East Main Street. In that case, Piasta was apparently caught on camera at the store, and at the time of his arrest he was wanted on a warrant out of Niagara County.

Information on the court status of those cases is not immediately available.

Driving back from the YWCA on Sunday afternoon, I noticed the great sky over Batavia and remembered that I've been wanting to take another shot at getting a picture of the William Morgan monument on a cloudy day. While I was stopped on Harvester snapping away at Morgan, I noticed the clouds reflecting off the windows of the Harvest Center and thought that that would make for a good shot, too. (If you want to see a bigger version, I'll post it to VuFindr.com some time in the next week, probably.)

Below is the shot I came up with of old Morgan, but a bit different than the one I imagined getting.

After a few years of being unemployed, Mary Holmes decided it was time to open her own store.

"I just finally got tired of working for other people," Holmes said.

The Batavia resident and Attica native owned a crafts store in Albany during her 25 years living there, but with her family's background in flea markets, it was natural that the store would carry a variety of used merchandise.

The primary focus, however, as the name of the store says, is books. The business name is Anything Goes Books and More. It is located in the Harvester Center right on Harvester Avenue.

Holmes has amazing, impressive array of items to sell, but as she expected, most of her customers to this point have been buying books.

She opened the store the first week of August.

And the outlet is a family affair. Some of the merchandise comes from her father's estate and her two bothers and sister help by going to garage sales and flea markets looking for more used items to sell in the store.

"I need the help," Holmes said. "I can't be out there picking stuff and be in here, too."

Right now, the store occupies three office-sized spaces in the Harvester Center. Holmes said it's her dream to see the store expand and carry even more items, or even when its doing well enough to move to Main Street.

She acknowledged that the Harvest Center is a little out of the way for some people, but with the recent addition of some other new businesses in the complex, it's helped her business a lot, she said.

Ken Merrick has restored a classic name to his business -- Uncle Tony's is now The Harvester, a variation of a name on the bar for 17 years before it became Uncle Tony's.

Merrick said since he was switching from a sole proprietorship to an LLC, and would have to re-apply for his liquor license, and since Uncle Tony's no longer served food, it seemed like the right time to make the switch.

Merrick has owned the business for 36 years on Harvester Avenue, operating it originally as the Harvester Hotel.

"My customers that go way back said, 'We still all call it the Harvester,'" Merrick said. "They told me, 'Why don't you call it the Harvester?'"  I said, "OK, but I'm not calling it the Harvester Hotel."