Home Care In Budd Lake, NJ

Budd Lake’s Sam’s Club permanently and unexpectedly closed its doors Thursday, taking employees by surprise. It was one of 63 stores that will shut down in the coming weeks, according to Walmart, which owns the membership warehouse chain.

The store, located in the International Trade Center section of Mount Olive, closed right after a Thursday morning meeting with employees.

Walmart spokesman Phil Keene said the decision to close the store was made following a review process and was done in part due to financial performance.

A Budd Lake Sam’s Club employee said a Wednesday night alert of the 9 a.m. Thursday meeting was the first hint anything was happening. Still, he was unaware the store would close before the start of the morning meeting.

The Budd Lake Sam’s Club had about 140 employees, and Keene said management will work to transfer as many as possible to other Sam’s Club and Walmart locations.

Keene said all employees, management and hourly, will receive 60 days’ pay. Some will receive severance beyond that, if they are eligible, he said. Management will be paid normally through Feb. 5, at which point they will start receiving their 60 days’ pay, he said.

All employees will also be paid based on the just-announced minimum wage boost to $11 per hour. They will also receive bonuses of up to $1,000. Walmart announced those moves Thursday, the same day they announced the Sam’s Club stores would close, crediting President Donald Trump's tax cut.

The Budd Lake Sam’s Club pharmacy will remain open through Jan. 27, and will work with customers to transfer their prescriptions, Keene said.

As of October 2017, there were 10 Sam’s Club locations in New Jersey, including Budd Lake, according to Keene. The two closest stores are now in Secaucus and Edison and will remain open, Keene said.

Thursday afternoon, Walmart confirmed 50 of the 63 announced Sam’s Club closures would be going out of business for good, while the others would close temporarily and become retail distribution centers.

About 10 of the 63 stores, including Budd Lake, closed abruptly Thursday. Not all of the 63 stores have been identified at the time of the announcement.

When asked on Twitter why the Budd Lake store was closed, Sam’s Club said it closed a series of stores to "better align our locations with our strategy."

Walmart has closed hundreds of stores worldwide in the past few years as more customers choose to shop online.

USA Today contributed to this story.

Staff Writer Michael Izzo: 973-428-6636; [email protected]

The Mount Olive community is rallying to raise money for a Budd Lake family that "lost everything" in a house fire late Sunday night, Mayor Rob Greenbaum posted.

As of Tuesday morning, more than $20,000 had been pledged to a GoFundMe page for the Lloyd family, who lost their house and possessions in the two-alarm blaze on Bridle Lane.

"Thankfully everyone is safe including their fur babies but they have lost everything, including a car," Emily Lloyd wrote, referring to her brother-in-law, John Lloyd, his partner, Marie Gonzalez, and their three children, ages 5 to 19.

Lloyd said her brother-in-law believes the fire may have started in the garage.

"He heard a noise and had gone downstairs to check it out around midnight," Emily Lloyd said. "He and my nieces went down there, and when they opened the garage door, it was all smoke. They tried to put it out and it was just too much."

John Lloyd then turned his focus to evacuation.

"He did get everybody out safely, including the dog," Emily Lloyd said. "The firefighters found the cat and gave the cat oxygen. Everyone is with us, but they lost everything."

The Budd Lake and Flanders fire departments responded to the scene just before midnight, along with mutual-aid companies in the area, the fire marshal's office posted.

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"The fire was knocked down within a half-hour, but crews remained on scene for three hours hitting hot spots and overhaul," the post read. "All residents and responders were safe."

"A big shout-out to all the first responders for their effort on the [Bridle] Lane structure fire last night," Mayor Rob Greenbaum posted on his Facebook page. "All people and pets escaped a major structure fire without major injury."

Greenbaum also posted a link to the GoFundMe page.

"The family is left without anything," Greenbaum posted. "Any help which you can add and help the family move forward is greatly appreciated. Mount Olive strong."

Emily Lloyd said the family is currently staying with relatives.

"I think they're just taking it day-by-day, trying to figure out where to go," she said. "Everything is still very new."

William Westhoven is a local reporter for DailyRecord.com. For unlimited access to the most important news from your local community, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

Bittersweet memories gave way to modern demands last week in Budd Lake as the quaint, long-shuttered Blue Bird Inn tavern on Route 46 met its long-overdue fate.

The deteriorating, 80-year-old, two-story building, closed since at least the early 1990s, was demolished Wednesday, torn to the ground by an excavator while Mount Olive Mayor Robert Greenbaum observed.

"It's always been closed since I've been here," said Greenbaum, who moved to the township in 1997.

Like the Gold Mine Hotel, another faded Route 46 landmark that was razed in July, Greenbaum hopes the removal of these relics will make room for modern development along the highway.

"We need to clean up the Route 46 corridor," he said. "Mount Olive has changed significantly from a lake community to a vibrant, multicultural, mutli-socioeconomic community. The Route 46 corridor obviously developed at a time before I lived in town, but there are a lot of properties that need some attention."

The property, with the tavern built into the downhill ridge along the highway frontage, is 1.14 acres, township administrator Andrew Tatarenko said.

"It's got real limitations, between wetlands and the limited [400 feet] road frontage," Greenbaum said.

Taxes on the property for 2019 were $5,682.

"There were a number of changes in ownership over the years," Greenbaum said. "The current ownership group, I believe, obtained the property through a tax foreclosure or some other distressed method of obtaining real estate."

The current owners also own a separate vacant lot next door taxed at $535 in 2019, Tatarenko said.

Meeting last year with the owners and planning experts, Greenbaum said the best proposal he saw for the property might be "a mixed-use, small-flex offices, maybe several units with a garage behind it for landscaping companies. I think you can put up about 10,000 square feet of development on that property."

But anything would be better than the status quo, Greenbaum said.

"The Blue Bird was kind-of was the flagship for the effort to clean up the Route 46 corridor," he said. "It hadn't been in use for a long time. It was very visible from the road. You could tell it was just vacant forever and there was no potential for the business to come back."

Still, as he posted photos on social media of the demolition, residents shared their fond memories of the Blue Bird, which opened in 1940.

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"End of an era," posted Ruthann Walsh Fulton.

"I grew up going to the Blue Bird several times a week for dinner and drinks (we lived walking distance across the highway)," posted Paul Jasper. "The owner Bob Meissner and his family were amazingly nice. Nothing but good memories for me. The music, the people, the arcade game (my favorite that I remember was Time Pilot!!), pool, Bob's cooking."

"Sad to see it go," wrote Betty Jennings. "That’s where I met my husband. Wish I could have seen if the one game machine was still inside."

"They allowed me and a few friends play pool there after school," Jim Nylander posted. "They let us buy soda that we mixed with rum we brought in. Bad boys."

"Had my first drink there once I turned of age," wrote Walt Lata. "Had our gun club meetings there."

Valerie Scorza Lindabury summed up the sentiment of those who feel the Blue Bird era had come and gone.

"It's about time," she wrote.

"Thrilled to see the eyesore removed," Steve N Aaron posted.

William Westhoven is a local reporter for DailyRecord.com. For unlimited access to the most important news from your local community, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

Budd Lake Beach in Mount Olive, closed for much of last summer due to high levels of harmful algal blooms, has been placed under a "blue-level" watch for the same reason by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.

A blue-level watch on DEP's six-tier alert table, put into effect this year, allows swimming but advises visitors not to ingest the water or eat fish caught in the lake, and urges caution during and after contact with the water.

Spikes in HAB levels in the summer of 2019 forced the effective closure of many popular recreation lakes in New Jersey, including Lake Hopatcong and Greenwood Lake. The closures crippled hundreds of businesses dependent on tourist traffic and set off controversies about whether the lower threshold levels of HAB contamination in New Jersey, compared with other states, were too strict.

The new tier system the DEP instituted for 2020 lets lakes allow swimming at higher HAB counts than last year, when a reading of more than 20,000 cyanobacteria cells/ML would result in advisories not to swim or contact the water in any manner.

This year, readings between 20,000 cells/ML and 80,000 cells/ML activate a blue-level alert, provided no other known toxins or public health thresholds have been detected. A reading over 80,000 cells/ML, or threshold-level detection of certain cyanotoxins, triggers an orange-level alert that includes closure of public beaches.

Budd Lake was closed in early August 2019 when the cell count at the beach was 91,750 cells/ml, and it remained closed through the end of the season.

Samples taken from Budd Lake last week showed cyanobacteria levels of 72,125 cells/ML and a microcystin level of 0.4 ug/L, well below the orange-level threshold of 3 ug/L. "Ug" refers to micrograms.

“We are heading into Labor Day weekend, but our lakes are still getting worse," said Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey Sierra Club. “Last year at this time there were 28 lakes closed, and this year we’re already at 32. We may see more lakes closed than last year, especially if we have a warm September. DEP needs to take strong action to protect our lakes and their watersheds. Otherwise, our lakes could end up dying.”

The 374-acre lake and beach, bordered on the south by Route 46, is a public park operated by the Mount Olive Recreation Department but is not operated as a public recreational bathing facility. It opened this year on June 19 with revised rules related to the coronavirus pandemic, including requirements to wear masks and practice social distancing.

William Westhoven is a local reporter for DailyRecord.com. For unlimited access to the most important news from your local community, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

For those looking to get in some swimming or kayaking over the holiday weekend, there’s good news and bad news.

The good news is that a few of the lakes in New Jersey placed under advisory over the blooms of toxic algae have reopened.

The bad news? Many still remain closed, including much of the state’s largest lake, Lake Hopatcong, for Labor Day weekend.

Cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae, is responsible for most of the blooms throughout New Jersey. The algae blooms, which began in June, have prompted state and local agencies to issue advisories for many of the lakes and reservoirs in the state impacted by the blooms.

Exposure to the algae blooms can cause skin rashes, and, if consumed, can cause abdominal pain, headaches, vomiting, nausea, blistering around the mouth, flu-like symptoms and even liver toxicity and neurological damage.

The bacteria can also harm pets and animals. That was evident by the recent reports of several dogs dying throughout the country from exposure to the bacteria.

However, this doesn’t mean that you have to altogether avoid the lakes, which are popular with kayakers, jet and water skiers and paddle-boarders. Officials say use caution and your best judgment.

What lakes are closed or under advisories?

Note: Advisories are not a ban. And a bathing beach closure does not actually mean “that a lake is ‘closed’ for other recreational activities, like boating,” the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) said in a statement, which noted that people should “exercise their best judgment when deciding whether to engage in the type of boating (e.g., kayaking, paddle boarding, jet-skiing) that could put them in bodily contact with the water.”)

Here’s the list of lakes affected by the blooms:

Deal Lake in Asbury Park

Sunset Lake in Asbury Park

Spruce Run Reservoir in Clinton Township

Lake Hopatcong State Park in Hopatcong

Rosedale Lake in Pennington

Greenwood Lake in West Milford

Budd Lake Beach in Mount Olive Township

Lake Musconetcong in Stanhope

Stacy Pond in Trenton

Memorial Lake in Woodstown

Rogerene Lake in Mount Arlington

Dramasei Park Lake in Gloucester Township

Sussex Co. Fire Academy Pond in Hampton Township

Papaianni Lake in Edison

Sylvan Lake in Burlington Township

Spencer Kent may be reached at NJ.com on Facebook.

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