Landmark Blue Front Changing Owners

Blue Front employees Scott Warren, left, and Scott Sample wait for customers behind the counter

Landmark Blue Front changing owners

By Zada Blayton-Cambridge
NEWS BUSINESS-LABOR REPORTER

Ownership of the Blue Front Cigar Store, a landmark at Packard and State streets for almost 80 years, is once again changing hands.

Warren Graving, owner of Marshall’s Package Liquor Dealer Inc. on State Street, is in the process of purchasing the comer variety store at an undisclosed amount from Jill Warren, owner since 1978.

The Blue Front, founded in 1902, came to have a unique character under the ownership of Ray E. Collins, who owned and operated the store between 1927 and the time of his death in 1978.

THE NARROW, box-strewn aisles and ceiling-high stacks of papers watched over by the gruff-looking Collins had been a favorite for those interested in a seemingly endless choice of current reading materials.

Warren, who was willed the store by Collins, has since widened the aisles and removed the clutter but has continued to stock over 2,000 different magazines, hundreds of different comic books, paperbacks, newspapers from as far away as London, games, candy and tobacco.

Warren said Collins would have been pleased with the sale to Graving because “he’s got the enthusiasm to grow with it.” Graving was reluctant to discuss plans for the store other than to say the tradition of the Blue Front would continue.

WARREN, 38, WHO has lived on the comer most of her life, said she felt the time had come to leave the store and pursue other interests. She declined, however, to reveal her plans at this time.

Warren was born across the street from the Blue Front in the house she lived in for 21 years. She had worked for Collins for over 10 years prior to his death.

Blue Front employees Scott Warren, left, and Scott Sample wait for customers behind the counter
The familiar facade of the Blue Front
Graving and Warren check inventories
NEWS PHOTOS BY LARRY E. WRIGHT