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The new building is built more for retail.
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Pittsfield Lawn and Tractor has a New Name and Space

By Breanna SteeleiBerkshires Staff
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PITTSFIELD, Mass – Pittsfield Lawn and Tractor (PLT)  recently moved their location and changed their name to Western Mass Power Equipment.

The new location, 1685 West Housatonic Street, is just up the road from their former spot.

The business is still owned by the Wojtkowski brothers. The name, website, and phone number were bought by United Rentals, prompting Pittsfield Lawn and Tractor to rename.

"One of the owners has a niece that's in the advertising business out in Chicago, so she came up with name, logo, stuff like that. So that's where Western Mass Power Equipment came from. We are still owned by the Wojtkowski family. That the ownership has not changed, just the name has changed, the address and and the phone number," said the store's general manager, Chris Gingras.

United Rentals is also renting out Western Mass Power Equipment's former building. Because of the sale, Western Mass Power Equipment will no longer do rentals and heavy construction equipment sales. 

"Pittsfield lawn and tractor was founded by the Wojtkowski brothers in 1986, and grew over the years. And the decision was made last year to sell the rental portion of the business and the heavy construction equipment sales to United rentals," Gingras said.

The new building is built more for retail.

"This building was built for retail. You know, there's, even though we're currently only using one, it has two showrooms. It has gobs of space back there for parts and service. Has the ability to have us on one property and under one roof, which we were and we weren't before." Gingras said, "Sales, parts, and service was all on the property up the street. Service was in a separate building, but we had our trailer display law across the street, and so now we're going to be all under one roof. The guys are still servicing in the building we own across the street from the old PLT, that's where we moved our service department back in December. But that's not permanent."

The new building was bought by one of the owners three years ago with their son, making it the most logical place to move,

Western Mass Power Equipment started moving into the new location in December and about a month ago they were finally able to open their doors after securing a certificate of occupancy from the city. 

The store provides lawn equipment like mowers, chainsaws, snow blowers, ATVS and more. They also service equipment and vehicles.

The store is open Monday through Saturday from 8 am to 5 pm and 8 am to 1 pm on Saturdays.

Their new website is https://www.wmape.com/ the new phone number is 413-344-8777.

If you would like to contribute information on this article, contact us at info@iberkshires.com.

Dalton Considers Updating its Municipal Code

By Sabrina DammsiBerkshires Staff
DALTON, Mass. — The town is considering updating its original 18-year municipal code to 2026 standards. 
 
During a recent Select Board meeting, General Code New England account manager Zach Dumont outlined the 18- to-24 month process. 
 
General Code New England is a division of the International Code Council, which writes all the statewide building codes across the United States. For the last 18 years, the organization has been the codifier for municipalities. 
 
"We work with communities to build, maintain, and update your local municipal code. That is your collection of bylaws, ordinances, regulations, and any other legislation you've ever adopted," Dumont said. 
 
Once the project is complete, the town would have a fully updated set of books and an improved eCode360 site, he said. 
 
"The way the process would work is we would put together a scope of work, a timeline, a price point, and everything that we would want to touch or do as a part of the code project," Dumont said. 
 
When a municipal code is built, it has a general lifespan of about 15 to 20 years, and although that is a long time, it goes by very quickly, he said. 
 
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