Lucky Day in Las Vegas
Antitrust challenges may be holding up plans to change the name on Alpha Beta stores in Los Angeles, but shoppers in the gambling mecca of Las Vegas have already gotten Lucky.
American Stores of Irvine, which owns Alpha Beta and last year paid $2.5 billion for Lucky Stores, recently closed its four Alpha Beta stores in Las Vegas for three days, then reopened them as Lucky stores on Feb. 2. The stores were closed so that prices could be changed to reflect Lucky’s lower prices, a spokeswoman said.
That brings the number of Lucky outlets in that market to 16. Now, all that’s left to worry about are the 182 Alpha Betas in Southern California and the 36 in Northern California.
A Ticket to Disaster
Earthquakes are not hazardous to your health--at least not at Universal Studios.
The entertainment firm’s newest multimillion-dollar attraction simulates the deadly 8.3 earthquake that hit San Francisco in 1906. Due to open March 18, the shaker takes place in a San Francisco subway station and features a train wreck, collapsing buildings and a torrential flood--but no injuries or deaths--while the tram rolls by.
A miracle?
“This is not going to be something that details people being horrifically injured,” said David Weitzner, president of marketing at MCA Recreation, a division of Universal’s parent company.
And what if some tourists freak out during the exhibition? “That will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis,” he said.
No ‘Enemies List’ for Arco
The left-wingers at Arco are at it again, according to a new book, “Patterns of Corporate Philanthropy.”
The giant oil company, the book says, is a prime example of U.S. companies undermining their interests by giving money to “liberal” groups that “advocate policies hostile to corporate interests.” Other offenders: AT&T;, Coca-Cola and J. P. Morgan & Co.
It is the second time that Arco has been attacked by the Capital Research Center, a group that contends that U.S. firms are so eager to “buy off” their opponents that they give them money to survive.
Arco replies that such gifts as $2,100 to Greenpeace, an environmental group, are merely matches to employee donations. Other gifts aid programs that don’t conflict with Arco policy, says the Arco Foundation, which parceled out $14 million last year.
But some of the dispute is about policy. Says one Arco employee of the Center’s definition of undesirable causes: “Almost every organization that is dedicated to helping minorities is on that list.”
The Un-Chardonnay
Sebastiani Vineyards rolls out a new brand of wine next month designed for those to whom Chardonnay means, in the words of Chairman Don Sebastiani, “This wine is OK.” But in reality Sebastiani’s Domaine Chardonnay won’t contain even a drop of costly Chardonnay wine.
Instead, it will contain a generic blend in a fancy, corked bottle. The resulting “dry white wine,” as the label designates the contents, will retail at $4 to $5, pitting it against the real budget-priced Chardonnay pioneered by another Sonoma County winery, Glen Ellen.
Sebastiani insists that its choice of names wasn’t intended to fool consumers. But it did fool federal regulators who, as one put it, “assumed there was Chardonnay if they say Chardonnay.”
So the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms has ordered Sebastiani to replace its labels as soon as possible with ones that relegate the name “Domaine Chardonnay” to small type at the bottom and state the blend’s contents by the percentages of its low-cost grapes.
