GUILDERLAND — When Donna Merrill was a kid growing up in Sharps Corners, she’d ride her bike to the old general store at the junction of routes 20 and 158.

Guilderland IDA board members on Aug. 22 approved $2.1 million in sales-tax relief and a $75,000 break on the state’s mortgage-recording tax for Crossgates Releaseco, a Pyramid Management Group LLC. 

Built in the city of Albany in 1994, the 437,286-square-foot outdoor shopping center Crossgates Commons is home to big-box retailers like Home Depot and At Home. The retail center had $29.8 million in debt spread across two loans whose original value was $32.5 million due May 1. 

 Not long after New Scotch, LLC filed trademark applications for some of its whiskeys, the New Scotland company drew unwanted attention from the Scotch Whisky industry’s powerful and litigious trade organization. 

On Wednesday, attorney for Save the Pine Bush Todd Ommen contended he was before the judges because his “client finds itself dismissed from this case without any court having heard the substance of its claims.”

GUILDERLAND — Daniel Darves-Bornoz, the owner of Provence, a French restaurant which closed during the pandemic, has opened a farm-to-table restaurant in the same Stuyvesant Plaza location.

“I’ve been asked a lot about timing,” said Ed Mitzen of his plans for the former Stewart’s on South Main Street in Voorheesville. “We’ve got a lot of work to do … but we’re hoping to be, you know, up within 18 months or so.”

The town of Guilderland is opposing a request from Crossgates that the mall’s 2020 and 2021 tax certiorari cases be consolidated into one lawsuit in part because the circumstances surrounding the valuations “were completely different.” The 2021 case would be based on a July 2020 valuation — when malls were closed for three of the year’s six months — compared to a 2020 tax hearing, which would be based on numbers from July 2019.

Winemakers, since 1993, have been allowed to manufacture and sell wine while waiting for a permanent license. Senator Michelle Hinchey and Assemblywoman Donna Lupardo’s bill, if signed into law, would allow all craft beverage makers — breweries, distilleries, cideries, and wineries — to apply for a six-month permit to get their business up and running, giving the State Liquor Authority 45 days to approve or deny a submitted application.

Ray Carucci, the owner of Westerlo antiques store Chipped, Tarnished, and Torn, said that Instagram helped him stay in business during the COVID-19 shutdown, cementing, for Carucci, the idea that even a business that deals in antiquities needs to adapt to the modern world.