According to locals, each morning from 7- 9 a.m., half the town of Sanger, Texas can be found drinking their morning coffee at the Sportsman corner store and eating breakfast at Old West Café just across the street.
“It’s kind of bizarre, just a bunch of old men gathering to drink coffee,” a Sportsman cashier said while sporting a Blue Lives Matter sweatshirt. “It’s one of those simple things that really make the town.”
But on a Sunday around 3 p.m., the entire town is at home.
Except for Cody Cook and his coworkers – who are getting through a slow work day by throwing a football back and forth behind their restaurant.
Cook, who lives in Plano, and his partners just opened Bolivar St. Barbecue on the Sanger Square.
“It’s a ghost town on Sundays,” Cook said. “As soon as church lets out, people get something to eat and then everybody goes home. It’s pretty quiet around here at this time.”
Clyde Callen, an employee at Bolivar St. Barbecue moved to Sanger when he was in the sixth grade. He describes the town as “small, but friendly and sometimes stinky.”
The smell Callen is referring to is coming from the wastewater tr
eatment plant.
The city council has stated on the Sanger website that they are aware of the problem, but that there is no quick fix. The memo states that the long-term solution involves “refurbishing and updating the plant.” A new plant is well outside the budget and simply refurbishing, while slower, is an option that avoids putting the extraneous costs onto residents.
Michelle Williams, a Sanger firefighter, and resident of 13 years said the smell doesn’t reach her part of town.
Williams has witnessed the town grow over the years, albeit it has been a slow growth.
“The area I serve has gotten a lot bigger since I’ve been here,” Williams said. “There has been some new suburban developments over at Sanger Circle thanks to a new builder.”
A couple years back, Sanger started permitting the sale of alcohol in hopes the extra income would allow for
more development.
“We thought it would start a big boom over here, but it hasn’t had as much of an impact as everyone thought it would,” Williams said. “We just have a few liquor stores now.”
What the town really needs, Williams said, is another grocery store.
Sanger is a one grocery store town, and the local employee-owned Super Save doesn’t always have everything people need. Williams finds herself commuting to Denton to do her grocery shopping.
sangerpublicaffairs.wordpress.com 