California: Feb. 9, 2001
Governor Gray Davis has signed an executive order calling on retailers to cut outdoor lighting at night by as much as 50 percent or face fines of $1,000 a day ... The California Energy Commission has approved a $2 million grant to Troy, Mich.-based Kmart Corp. for retrofitting its lighting in older stores, with a goal of reducing energy consumption by sales-floor lighting fixtures as much as 40 percent; the retrofits will be implemented at all 85 California Kmart stores, with locations in the San Francisco Bay area and San Diego, the parts of the state hit hardest by the energy crisis, given first priority ... Mass lay-offs—defined as 50 or more employees let go at once by a single company—in the Golden State reached almost 155,000 in the fourth quarter of 2000, according to the U.S. Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics; that’s a 14 percent increase over the same quarter one year earlier...Anthony Franco, a newly opened upscale boutique, has closed its doors in the trendy Melrose Heights section near the western end of Melrose Avenue, one of the best known shopping destinations in Los Angeles, apparently a victim of hot retail buzz that hasn’t yet translated into warm bodies walking the thoroughfare; the couture designer shuttered his eponymous boutique, less than six months after opening the 3,000-square-foot store.
