Two big lottery winners bought tickets at Brier Grocery

Brier Grocery
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By Diane Hettrick

A weathered grocery store in the tiny town of Brier has just sold another winning lottery ticket and will get 1% of $120,000 as its share.

Brier Grocery, at 23607 Brier Rd, sold a $120,000 Hit 5 ticket, drawn last week on August 7.

Brier is north of Lake Forest Park and Kenmore
and east of Mountlake Terrace and Shoreline

Brier, notorious for decades for its speed trap (do not go even 1mph over the speed limit when you are going down that steep hill on 228th), now has bragging rights over something more positive.

When asked what it meant to sell Lottery tickets at their store, a Brier Grocery employee said,

"Being a community store in a small town, we like to take requests from our neighbors. We began selling Lottery tickets after requests from our local community members. 

"We enjoy connecting with our customers about which scratch tickets they like to play and why. Everyone I talk to outside of our town asks me where Brier is, and now thanks to the Washington State Lottery, people will know!”

The Hit 5 winner does not want any publicity.

The $120,000 prizes pales in comparison to the winning ticket sold at the store in July of this year.

According to the press release, a Brier resident who bought a ticket at the grocery store took home the prize of $12.2 million dollars.

The winner, who also requested to remain anonymous, told lottery officials, “We’re shocked, this is an unbelievable experience.”

The winner went on to share, “I saw the lotto jackpot was getting bigger and bigger. Sometimes I ask my husband to buy tickets for me, if I’m unable to go out. We know the store owner, and they told my husband his luck is different from my luck. My husband said ‘it’s better that you get it, so if you are destined to win, then it’s you and not me, I’m just going to ruin it for you.’”

The winner continued, “on July 3 I decided to stop at Brier Grocery. The owners are always friendly to me and my husband. After 8 p.m. I checked my ticket. I woke my husband and said ‘get up! You have to verify these numbers for me!’ The next day, we went to breakfast to celebrate.”

“We consulted our CPA and lawyer because we don’t know how to deal with this. The other day my husband saw on the news that the winner hadn’t claimed their prize yet. We said, ‘oh my god they’re talking about us!’” the winner laughed.

The Brier residents do not intend to fall into the traps that many lottery winners do. They are content with their lives. The one expenditure they plan is to replace their 20 year old car.

And Brier Grocery? They also will get 1% of this prize of $12.2 million.

Proceeds from Washington’s Lottery benefit the Washington Opportunity Pathways Account, providing grants to college students statewide. Learn more about Washington’s Lottery, its beneficiaries and to review all up-to-date winning numbers here.