Business Closings

Hundreds of car dealers marched on Washington this week, hoping to build public support for a bill to block General Motors and Chrysler from closing about 3,300 dealerships. These were family businesses, they said, mom-and-pop stores employing hundreds of thousands of Americans. And they were being asked to shoulder more than their share of pain in the restructuring of the auto industry. An honest political observer would acknowledge that the bill has almost no chance of becoming law.

The longtime secretary to the most powerful man in Hollywood said he "would roll over in his grave." Melody Sherwood, who served as Lew Wasserman's executive assistant for nearly three decades, said that the legendary studio mogul who died in 2002 would have strenuously opposed the decision to shut down the long-term-care facility known as the "motion picture home," a fixture of the entertainment industry for more than a half a century.

Last summer, the tranquil English village of Kentisbeare woke up to find a dagger piercing its heart. The man who ran the neighborhood pub, the Wyndham Arms, had decided to call it quits. Hit by hard times, he locked up one evening and never came back, leaving the village bereft of its "local," the watering hole down the road where, for more than 200 years, the good folk here could always drop in for a pint, a pie or a piece of gossip.

I was standing recently before a classroom full of fresh-faced journalism students at a local high school. As I usually do at such things, I opened by asking for a show of hands from all those planning newspaper careers. Crickets. "Nobody?" I asked. A couple of students tentatively raised their hands, mostly, I gathered, out of a sense of politeness. Why should I have expected anything different? The newspaper industry is rapidly disintegrating.

Shoppers won't be picking up ornate lamps from the Bombay Co. in the coming year. Or investing with Lehman Bros. Holdings Inc. and Bear Stearns Cos. No flying to Hawaii on Aloha Airlines or buying ultracheap tickets on Skybus, either. All those names vanished last year, victims of the economy, the financial meltdown or other factors. Experts say 2009 could mark the end of even more well-known brands as the now-yearlong recession puts more struggling companies on life support.

For more than 50 years, Kimmel-Meehan has tended to the fine clothing needs of generations of men from its storefront on Montrose's picturesque Honolulu Avenue. Founders Gale Kimmel and Howard Meehan are long gone, and soon their store will be too. On Thursday, the landmark haberdashery launched a going-out-of-business sale with all merchandise marked 40% to 80% off.

Gainesville's first community hospital has been on life support ever since Shands HealthCare system in northern Florida bought it a dozen years ago. Now, because of the recession, the plug is being pulled on money-losing Shands AGH. This fall, its nonprofit parent company will shut the 80-year-old, 220-bed hospital and shift staff and patients to a newer, bigger hospital nearby in an effort to save $65 million over three years across the eight-hospital system.

The Post newspapers printed their final editions Monday, ending a 126-year run. However, the final editions also carried some news: Their parent company will keep a remnant alive in the form of a Kentucky-oriented website. "-30-," a symbol traditionally used by journalists, printers and telegraphers to signal the end of a dispatch, proclaimed the front-page headline in the last Cincinnati and Kentucky newspaper editions.

As they stocked up one last time on nuts, bolts and nails, some were worrying Monday that Larchmont Village was being hammered. The quaint shopping district's 82-year-old hardware store was closing Monday, the latest victim of what many fear is an assault on mom-and-pop businesses by developers who are buying up the storefront shops and boutiques.

Los Angeles County healthcare officials unveiled a draft cost-cutting plan Wednesday that calls for closing all but one of the county's dozen clinics and reduces services at its six comprehensive outpatient health centers. Officials said a $195-million deficit makes the cuts necessary even under a "best-case scenario" for the badly strapped public healthcare system. The county faces the threat of more reductions in state and federal aid in the next few months.