Irving makes transition to Circle K

Call any Irving Oil convenience store across Maine and the person who answers the phone will say it is operating under a new name – Circle K.

“Good afternoon, Main Street … Circle K,” a female voice said Wednesday afternoon, slightly stumbling over the new label.

The changeover occurred between Tuesday and Wednesday at 252 of Irving Oil’s Blue Canoe, Mainway and Big Stop convenience stores across New England and Atlantic Canada.

The gas pumps were wrapped in yellow tape, similar to crime scene tape, during the overnight switch, and some people, unaware of the change, thought the stores had been robbed, Irving spokesman Lars Trodson said Wednesday.

“At least it got people’s attention,” he said.

Saint John, New Brunswick’s Irving Oil Ltd. signed a 20-year deal with Laval, Quebec’s Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc. to operate the 252 stores, which will continue to sell Irving gasoline.

“We have about 2,000 employees in New England and 97 percent are retaining their jobs,” Trodson said.

He said Irving would not release information about whether the employees who lost their jobs were given severance or other pay.

A total of 124 of the stores are in Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Vermont. The other 128 are in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador.

Trodson said he was not sure whether the Canadian stores would operate as Circle Ks or under the brand name Couche-Tard, which is French for “goes to bed late” and has a winking owl on its signs. Financial details about the lease agreement were not disclosed.

The deal makes the approximately 6,000-store Couche-Tard, which acquired the Circle K brand in 2003, the second-largest independent convenience store operator in North America, surpassed only by 7-Eleven.

Circle K, launched in El Paso, Texas, in 1951, went through a mid-1980s bankruptcy and ownership changes before it was purchased by Couche-Tard for $804 million five years ago.

Signs at the stores are all expected to be changed by the end of the year, Trodson said.

“People really should know, both the Cruise-in-to-win and the override gas programs are still on,” he said, referring to gas discount programs offered through Shaw’s grocery stores and Dunkin’ Donuts. “And you can combine them.”

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