Livin’ in Liverpool: Live bait vending biz gone fishin’

Thirteen years ago Dave Webber installed a Live Bait vending machine at the corner of Vine and First streets here in the village. Local anglers would drop in a few coins and come away with jumbo Canadian nightcrawlers as round as your thumb and longer than your hand.

Webber also stocked his machines with trout worms from an importer who flew them over alive from Europe. He also sold leeches, butter worms and salted minnows. The minnows were the only “dead” product dispensed by Dave’s machines. And the vending machines were well refrigerated to keep the bait cool and comfy at 42 degrees.

“The worms can live for about a month in there,” he said.

When he started out here in 2005, Webber charged just $2.50 for 15 premium nightcrawlers, $3 for a dozen leeches and $1.75 for a dozen meal worms. The price was right, Onondaga Lake was within sight down at the end of Vine Street and Nichols Supermarket and Discount Liquor store made good partners, dutifully placing a “Live Bait” sandwich-board out on the sidewalk.

But all good things come to an end. At his peak, Webber operated about 20 Live Bait machines across CNY, but the vending machine business — like the rest of the world — is swiftly going digital.

Nichols owner Mike Hennigan reports that Webber faced two overwhelming obstacles.

“The manufacturer of the round container that dispensed all bait stopped making them,” Mike explained. “Dave attempted to make his own from plastic and said it was a disaster! Secondly the actual machines from which the bait was sold became impossible to get, and he ran out of machines to steal parts from to keep others operating.”

Back in 2005, a typical Live Bait vending machine could cost as much as $4,500.

Anyhow, Liverpool’s Live Bait vending machine is history.

We’ll just have to go back to digging up worms from our backyard lawns.

Ready for anything!

Three Liverpool Police officers recently attended the Civilian Response to Active Shooter Events Training offered by the New York State Department of Criminal Justice Services. The officers — Sean Pierce, John Praskey and Dave Sturtz — are now certified CRASE instructors, and are expected to offer workshops to local businesses and community groups. On March 7, the officers conducted a training session for village officials.

A cool million!

Last Aug. 15, Hollywood director Jeremy Garelick paid $1 million to buy the historic Zogg Building, the former Liverpool High School at 800 Fourth St. According to the Onondaga County Office of Real Property Services, Garelick finalized the sale on that date, after the village of Liverpool Planning Board approved a special-use permit on June 26 to allow the proposed Liverpool School of Cinema to operate as a trade school.

In 2016, the property’s selling price was $1,295,000. The owner at that time — Suriyawanakul Kriangkai — eventually agreed to accept a cool mill.

The 42-year-old Garelick can certainly afford it. His last big movie —2015’s “The Wedding Ringer” — learned more than three times what it cost to make. The comedy which Garelick wrote and directed was shot for $23 million and grossed $79.8 million at the box office.

Garelick plans to convert the 90-year-old Zogg Building into a trade school for aspiring movie-makers.

And $50 million more!

Meanwhile, Deadline.com has reported that Garelick has teamed up with Mickey Liddell’s LD Entertainment to launch American High. “Staked with a $50 million, the new company will generate a slate of high school-set comedy features. Garelick will tap his relationships to hatch the films, which will be shot in a recently acquired 100,000-square-foot high school-turned-studio” in Liverpool.