To reach this month’s dump, we drive along Route 302, a.k.a. Roosevelt Trail, to Naples, near the Casco town line, where a promising site to shoot the sequel to Harmony Korine’s artfully dysfunctional 1997 film Gummo awaits. I can picture Chloë Sevigny now, with a hand on her hip, bleached brows and a dream, erecting her thumb in front of this eyesore. But absent its cinematic potential, a more hardheaded reality sinks in: a sprawling pitstop for travelers offering gas, grub and drugs, vacant for years, boarded-up and falling down, its future unknown.
Three structures define the property at 99 Roosevelt Trail: Lake Region Convenience Center, Lake Region Redemption Center, and a four-pump gas island between them under the red-and-while canopy of Russian petroleum giant Lukoil.
The convenience store is painted a jaundiced yellow, as is the plywood covering its windows, and peeling everywhere. Its sloped crimson metal roof evokes the charming suburban vernacular style of architecture, but the blocky section with circular windows perilously perched over the front entrance looks like it dropped on the building from the sky.
A yellowed plastic light-up Pepsi sign, its bulbs long dead, advertises pizza, pasta, Italians and other subs, breakfast sandos and salads (yum!). A banner of equal size next to it falsely announces, “KRATOM & CBD SOLD HERE.” (Although the latter is legal, kratom — an herbal extract used as a stimulant [in small doses], a relaxant [in larger doses] and an aid to ease symptoms of opioid withdrawal — cannot be lawfully marketed in the U.S., according to the Food & Drug Administration.) It’s an honest nod to the American consumer’s basest desires: fill up the tank, fill up the stomach, and chill the fuck out.
The hulking wooden redemption center, painted white with light black road grime, has its own unlit Pepsi sign and a banner claiming to sell the same dope. What’s more concerning is the skeletal section in back that’s in an active state of collapse, with tattered strips of Maine’s unofficial flag, the blue tarp, sticking out around the edges.
To the millions of annual travelers on Teddy’s Trail heading west to the lakes of Maine and the mountains of New Hampshire, this property stands as the gateway into the bucolic town of Naples. Russian oil, hippie crack and a caved-in roof do not make a great first impression, which begs the question: How long will this dump be left to rot?
The future of the property, which is valued for tax purposes at over half a million dollars, is currently in the hands of C.N. Brown, the Maine-based company that owns and operates over 70 Big Apple convenience stores here and in New Hampshire and sells fuel under the red-and-white canopies of Citgo, which is majority-owned by the government of Venezuela. C.N. Brown bought the place in the summer of 2023, and plans from that fall on file with the town indicate the company intended to turn this into another Big Apple.
The need to provide a second means of access between this property and busy Route 302 was raised in the planning documents as a potential obstacle, but it’s unclear if that’s the reason the project has stalled. C.N. Brown did not respond to requests for comment.Naples’ municipal planner, Kathy Tombarelli, said a demolition permit has been approved for the site, but could not say when it was issued or why it isn’t being used.
Some locals commenting in the town’s Facebook group lament the loss of Lake Region Convenience’s Italian delicacies. Others snark about using the property to store boats and question whether Naples, home to fewer than 4,000 residents, needs a third gas station — especially another Citgo/Big Apple; there’s one three minutes down the road, at 293 Roosevelt Trail. Many see this as a harbinger of higher gas prices, a ploy to soak the tourists while sticking it to the Maine Neapolitans who use the same pumps year-round.
It’s possible C.N. Brown bought the property to prevent it from becoming a rival gas station capturing customers before they reach the one they own just down the road. It’s also possible, according to the Mayo Clinic, to experience nausea, seizures, dizziness, drowsiness, delusions and depression on kratom. In this, the greatest country on Earth, anything is possible.
Editor’s note: As of late January, a month after this piece was published, both dumpy buildings have been demolished and removed.
