Costco

Warehouse club Costco Wholesale Corp. will raise annual membership fees 10% amid rising costs. The discount chain announced the price hike Wednesday, the same day that it reported strong fourth-quarter and September sales growth. The fee increase, which goes into effect Nov. 1, affects members in the U.S. and Canada and is Costco's first since May 2006. The company has locations around the world including Mexico, the United Kingdom, Japan and Australia. The company will raise annual membership fees by $5 for U.S. individual, business and business add-on customers as well as for Canada business members.

Re "The Almighty Tax Revenue," editorial, April 21 In all the propaganda generated by the Cottonwood Christian Church case against Cypress, the real issue often is overlooked. Our government has given itself the power to take land from citizens who have legally purchased it. The city's actions should scare every American citizen. City officials are acting like a street gang that extorts money from businesses in their "hood." Businesses that won't pay are forced out and businesses that will are allowed to move in. Has Costco approached Cottonwood and made them an offer they can't refuse?

Union officials charged Monday that Costco Wholesale Corp. is violating state law by requiring employees to man tables soliciting signatures for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's workers' compensation reform initiative. In a letter to Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer, California officials of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters accused Costco of coercing its workers "to engage in political activity on behalf of an employer."

How do you make a Costco beautiful? It's been a thorny topic in the west San Fernando Valley for more than a year, ever since Westfield Group, owner of the landmark Topanga and Promenade malls, announced plans for a 30-acre development between the two shopping centers. Many residents were expecting a Bloomingdale's, high-rise towers, upscale dining. What they got was a Costco. "It's just a box with a parking lot," said Shirley Blessing, a 41-year resident. Plans to include a 20-pump gas station didn't help matters.

Let's just put it right out there: Never in the history of mankind has a movie been more phallic-ly fixated than "The Watch. "This R-rated Freudian foolishness stars some of the usual suspects known to traffic in prurient puns - Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn and Jonah Hill. The very funny Richard Ayoade, representing the more restrained British point of view on things of a sexual nature, completes the film's foursome. Some of the phallic jokes work, others are really lame. Fortunately there are many other funny bits that have nothing to do with body parts that keep the laughs coming.

It's a lawsuit to end the lawsuit in the dispute between Cypress and the Cottonwood Christian Center. The question is whether the city can turn the church's land into a Costco. Cypress has asked a federal court to keep out of the fight--despite a church request for intervention--and let the Orange County Superior Court decide. The city is trying to use eminent domain to take the land where Cottonwood wants to build a mega-church. The city already is negotiating to sell Costco the 18 acres.

'Twas the morning before Christmas, and all the HDTVs, Justin Bieber dolls and cases of discounted wine were hung on the shelves with care. Then, kablooie! A power outage shut down three big-box stores in Atwater Village on Friday morning just as desperate shoppers were converging for last-minute Christmas shopping. "Uh, it's closed?" a customer asked a Best Buy regional official, Pat McGann, who stood outside his company's store on Los Feliz Boulevard patiently explaining that the store was, yes, closed until a generator arrived.

Re "Church, Costco at Odds Over Site," April 6: The Cypress City Council sees sales tax revenue as more important than religion. It is refusing to allow construction of a large church complex on prime land owned by the church. Costco also wants to build on that land. The city plan seems to be to use its power of condemnation to take the church land and then sell it to Costco--or to simply keep the land vacant until the church gives in. The 1st Amendment says that Congress shall make no law prohibiting the free exercise of religion.

Costco Wholesale has become the lead tenant at the newly completed, $16-million O'Donnell Industrial Center in Rancho Cucamonga, after signing a three-year lease for an aggregate value exceeding $1.8 million with the owner/developer, O'Donnell, Armstrong & Partners. The Seattle-based Costco, which is relocating this month from Compton, will use 186,000 square feet of a 256,275-square-foot distribution building for warehousing and distribution to its stores.