Continental Currency Services

Eight check-cashing offices in South Central Los Angeles closed last week by the state were reopened Thursday with the promise that $2.7 million in outstanding money orders would be honored. The new owners, Continental Currency Services, bought the insolvent business from state banking authorities and agreed to honor an estimated 30,000 outstanding money orders issued by the previous operators.

About 1,000 food-stamp recipients were turned away from stamp distribution centers Monday when a computer glitch shut down operations for more than six hours. Although the centers opened in the evening, the glitch caused long lines and waits, and forced people on severely limited budgets to take additional bus rides for the stamps.

Thousands of blank money order slips were among the items stolen from grocery stores and liquor stores during last week's rioting in Los Angeles, and merchants elsewhere are starting to get stung with the losses. "People are selling these money orders on the street, and merchants need to be careful in accepting them," warned Al McCown, chief financial officer of Continental Currency Services in Santa Ana.

Thousands of blank money order slips were among the items stolen from grocery stores and liquor stores during last week's rioting in Los Angeles, and merchants elsewhere are starting to get stung with the losses. "People are selling these money orders on the street, and merchants need to be careful in accepting them," warned Al McCown, chief financial officer of Continental Currency Services in Santa Ana.

About 1,000 food-stamp recipients were turned away from stamp distribution centers Monday when a computer glitch shut down operations for more than six hours. Although the centers opened in the evening, the glitch caused long lines and waits, and forced people on severely limited budgets to take additional bus rides for the stamps.

Rejecting pleas from local businesses to keep government contracts in Ventura County, the Board of Supervisors has authorized the county's Public Social Services Agency to hire a Santa Ana firm to run a new food stamp distribution program. The supervisors voted 3 to 2 Tuesday to award the contract--worth almost $49,500 over four months--to Continental Currency Services Inc.

Facing increasing costs from mail fraud and a burgeoning case load, the Ventura County agency that provides more than $2 million in food stamps to the poor will turn over stamp distribution to a private company next week. Starting June 1, the county's 14,100 families on food stamps will no longer receive their monthly allotment by mail. Instead, Continental Currency Services Inc.

Santa Ana historian Charles D. Swanner estimated that the photograph above of the rustic, redwood, board-and-batten house was taken around 1905. If so, it must have been a nostalgic visit for the man with the Smith Brothers beard seated on the front porch. He's William H. "Uncle Billy" Spurgeon, founder of Santa Ana, posing with his second wife, Jennie.

Ada Bonds, a 67-year-old disabled retiree, pays a check-cashing store in South-Central about $13 every month to cash her $620 Social Security check. And Bonds pays $10 for every $100 worth of personal checks and money orders she cashes. A bank would be less expensive--a checking account at the nearest bank 13 blocks away would cost at most $20 a year.

Eight check-cashing offices in South Central Los Angeles closed last week by the state were reopened Thursday with the promise that $2.7 million in outstanding money orders would be honored. The new owners, Continental Currency Services, bought the insolvent business from state banking authorities and agreed to honor an estimated 30,000 outstanding money orders issued by the previous operators.