GUILDERLAND — The Mobil station at 1667 Western Ave. in Westmere was seized early last week for nonpayment of back sales tax, but it was up and running again a few days later, apparently under new management.

Jon Kaplan, vice president and one of the owners of Red-Kap Sales in Schenectady, said Tuesday that the property was owned by a sub-corporation of Red-Kap Sales at the time of the seizure and that the company had been leasing it to the then-operator, who “ran into the tax problem.”

“We were simply the landlord at that point, and it had nothing to do with us or our business,” said Kaplan.

James Gazzale of the state’s Department of Taxation said this week that the current warranted balance against the business is $25,637.53.

He said that secrecy laws prevented him from commenting on specific cases, but said that there are many factors that would make it possible for the department to “return to the keys to a business.” Reasons include, he said, that a business may show willingness to operate in good faith, or may challenge the debt.

The warranted balance against the business at the time of the seizure last week was $28,976.84, Gazzale told The Enterprise earlier.

The warranted balance “is the previous owner, and has nothing to do with me,” said Kaplan.

Red-Kap Sales is a gasoline distributorship that runs seven other convenience stores, Kaplan said, six in the Capital District and one in Syracuse.

The previous operator of the business has vacated the property, and Red-Kap Sales taken over running the business, Kaplan said.

The store was not previously “being run to our standards,” said Kaplan, and Red-Kap plans to improve the level of service at the station. Kaplan declined to comment further on what specific areas needed improvement.