Visitors to a BP gas station and convenience store in Natrona Heights may be able to pick up beer to go by the time football season starts.

Owner Gary L. Weleski said now that the Harrison commissioners have approved a restaurant liquor license transfer for the store, he'll seek the state's final OK for the license.

He'll also have an architect draw plans for a 10-foot-deep addition to the rear of the business, running across the width of the building at Alter Road and Route 908.

With the addition, the store can be reconfigured to allow for more coolers and the required cafe with seating for 30 people, said Weleski, president of Welmart Inc., which owns the station.

Altoona-based convenience store giant Sheetz Inc. is adding beer to more of its Pennsylvania locations, and has a pending restaurant liquor license application for a Sheetz that's under construction off Freeport Road in Harrison.

Giant Eagle Inc.'s GetGo gas station/convenience stores, other chains and independent stores are making similar moves.

Weleski is looking to keep up with the times and expand customer service.

“We just want to maintain our level ground with the other convenience stores in the area,” he said. “We didn't want to be the one without the beer license.”

The Harrison commissioners approved the license transfer to Welmart in a 4-0 vote Monday. Robin Bergstrom abstained, saying she felt it wouldn't be proper to vote because she operates a beer distributorship.

Mark E. Kozar, an attorney who represented Weleski at the public hearing, said the business would sell beer in six- and 12-packs. Weleski said bottles of wine could be sold later too, with an addendum to the license that is being transferred from a south suburban Pittsburgh location.

“This is not going to be a place where people come in to drink and hang out,” Kozar said at the meeting.

Weleski said the convenience store already sells Subway sandwiches and Anthony's pizza, named for his father.

Commissioners' Chairman Bill Poston noted at the meeting that other stores paired with gas stations are moving to beer and wine sales, and it's virtually a “no-brainer” for Welmart to go that route to stay competitive.

Fourteen Sheetz stores in Pennsylvania sell beer, out of a total of 261, spokesman Nick Ruffner said.

“Our goal is to eventually offer beer in every location that we can,” he said.

Wine also will be sold, although with training and additional permitting those products typically appear later.

Sheetz has 550 stores in six states, and all stores outside Pennsylvania sell beer, he said.

Coolers at Harrison's new Sheetz should be stocked with beer when it opens, tentatively on July 6.

The store also will be one of 90 with drive-thru windows where motorists can get almost anything in the store — except beer and lottery tickets, Ruffner said.

Also in Pennsylvania, 18 of Giant Eagle's GetGo stores sell beer, in addition to 42 supermarkets, spokesman Dick Roberts said.

Nationwide, 83 percent of convenience stores sold beer in 2015, said Jeff Lenard, vice president of strategic industry initiatives with the National Association of Convenience Stores, based in Alexandria, Va.

And 63 percent of convenience stores are run by a one-store operator, versus a chain, he said. Pennsylvania has close to 4,800 convenience stores, and nearly 2,600 of them are single-operator businesses.

“So it's a lot of small businesses,” Lenard said.

And the stores aren't necessarily just vying with each other for customers.

“With convenience stores, it comes down to the idea of how you compete against everyone else” in a market where many states have a variety of restrictions, Lenard said. “Whether it's beer or any other product ... retailers just want to have the ability to offer these items to their customers because they are being offered in other outlets.”

Weleski wants to complete his store addition by late August or early September. He also operates Weleski Transfer, an Atlas Van Lines moving company in Tarentum; self-storage businesses in East Deer and Kittanning; and Atlas locations in Johnstown and Cleveland.

The convenience store site originally was to become another self-storage location, he said. A small insurance office was there when he bought it, but he discovered a clause in the deed that said if oil was to be sold on the site it had to be BP products.

Oil companies used to buy up parcels at key intersections and along highways, he said, and with the location just off Route 28 he opted to make the business a gas station and store instead.

Contributing writer Tom Yerace contributed. Kim Leonard is a Tribune-Review staff writer. She can be reached at 724-226-4674, kleonard@tribweb.com or via Twitter @KimLeonardTrib.

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