Business Closings

The California Department of Financial Institutions closed Redlands-based 1st Centennial Bank late Friday, saying its six branches will reopen Monday as part of First California Bank of Camarillo. Like many Inland Empire banks, 1st Centennial ran into trouble funding home builders. It was the third U.S. bank to fail this year and the first in California since Downey Savings of Newport Beach on Nov. 21. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

In one of three U.S. bank failures Friday, regulators closed Alliance Bank of Culver City and sold its five branches to California Bank & Trust. The San Diego-based buyer agreed to assume all of Alliance Bank's deposits, including uninsured funds, so no depositors will lose money as a result of the bank's failure, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said.

The wave of book publishing cuts has now reached HarperCollins. The publisher of such authors as Nobel laureate Doris Lessing, Oprah Winfrey favorite David Wroblewski and Newbery prize winner Neil Gaiman has closed and dispersed a nonfiction division and a children's imprint and laid off what a spokeswoman described as a "small percentage" of employees.

The Rocky Mountain News announced Thursday that it would print its final edition today, becoming the latest casualty in the steady decline in the economic viability of newspapers. Richard A. Boehne, chief executive of the E.W. Scripps Co., told staff members that the paper, just two months shy of its 150th birthday, would close effective today. The move will leave the Denver Post as the city's lone daily newspaper.

A saloon in California's Gold Country that is said to be the oldest continuously operating bar west of the Mississippi River is in danger of closing because of the downturn in the economy, a co-owner of the establishment said Tuesday. The Holbrooke Hotel in Grass Valley, which includes the Golden Gate Saloon, is likely to close Monday unless a buyer steps forward, said managing partner Jim O'Brien. "We are losing money every day we are open," he said.

Amber LaPointe's introduction to one of the country's greatest tourist attractions came from small square pictures on a white wheel. "It was like you could look into a world away," said the 28-year-old from Toledo, Ohio. "My only image of the Grand Canyon was from the View-Master." The iconic reels of tourist attractions, often packaged with a clunky plastic viewer and first sold to promote 3-D photography, are ending their 70-year run after years of diminishing sales.

In an apparent gambit to head off a legal challenge, the charity that operates a nursing home for entertainment industry workers said it has "no plans" to issue eviction notices to more than 100 residents. On the face of it, the announcement makes it seem as though the Motion Picture & Television Fund, operator of the Woodland Hills facility, is backpedaling from its decision to close the nursing home.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, whose giant globe has been a fixture on the city's skyline for much of the newspaper's 146-year history, will print its last edition today and become the largest metropolitan daily to switch to an online-only publication. The announcement was delivered Monday morning by Publisher Roger Oglesby to a shattered newsroom that -- in classic P-I style -- wiped back tears, broke out the whiskey and then went back to work.

Regional department store chain Gottschalks Inc. is going out of business after failing to successfully reorganize its operations under Chapter 11, the Fresno company said Tuesday. The 105-year-old chain, which filed for bankruptcy protection in January, sells fashion apparel, cosmetics, shoes, accessories and home merchandise. Most of its locations -- 55 department stores and three specialty apparel stores -- are in California.

Going-out-of-business sales start today at 38 Ritz Camera Centers Inc. stores in California, part of the retailer's plan to shut 300 stores nationwide in a last-ditch bid to keep the company afloat. Like many in the retail business, Beltsville, Md.-based Ritz has been slammed by the sharp slowdown in consumer spending. Among the companies that have scaled back or been wiped from the retail landscape recently are Circuit City, Mervyn's, Linens N Things and KB Toys.