SHOPPING SHOWDOWN: Oxnard city leaders are appealing...

SHOPPING SHOWDOWN: Oxnard city leaders are appealing to Ventura leaders’ sense of fair play (B1). . . . They want Ventura to halt a proposed expansion of the Buenaventura Mall, which may draw big retail stores from Oxnard. But Ventura Councilman Jim Monahan said the stores will go where the shoppers are. . . . “When Ventura lost business to Oxnard, we didn’t go and appeal their decision,” he said. “That’s business.”

GREATEST GIFT: You may have seen the Christmas trees at the malls decorated with paper gingerbread cookies with a child’s age printed on the back. . . . The trees are one way that Children’s Services Auxiliary gets toys for 500 Ventura County children in foster homes, group homes or low-income families. Radio station KVEN also raises money for the auxiliary to buy specially requested gifts. . . . Then Joan Gendreau-Herbert goes shopping. “Last year, one little girl asked for a tombstone for her parents’ grave. They had both died, and the family had no money.”

ELVES TO EROTICA: Cathi and Jim Nye operate a Christmas boutique in an old Southern Pacific dining car near Five Points in Ventura, where 32 artisans hope to sell Christmas crafts (D6A). . . . The At the Side Car gift shop closes Christmas Eve, and a week later, the Nyes open a new art gallery behind the side car. . . .The New Year’s Eve opening show: Erotica. Said Cathi Nye: “I encouraged artists . . . to pull out the stuff that they’ve never displayed before.”

DENNY’S PAYS: Denny’s restaurants will have paid $46 million to 294,537 people around the country by the end of this month to settle a class-action discrimination case (D2). . . . Robert and Renita Hughes of Oxnard filed a claim to be part of the case. The Hugheses, with their pastor and his wife and another friend, who are all African American, were ignored at an Oxnard Denny’s before and after they seated themselves, Hughes alleges. . . . Said he: “They didn’t say two words to us. I thought I was back down South again or something.”