Costco

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.

Your Men's Fashion issue (April 15) must have caused a stampede among your multimillionaire readers to Beverly Hills to purchase all those great bargains before they sell out. Costco and Lands' End never looked better to me. Stanley Friedman Pacific Palisades

The Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday unanimously approved spending $18.7 million to help build a shopping center in Pacoima that many view as key to the working-class neighborhood's economic revival. The $59.2-million Plaza Pacoima project on Paxton Street next to the 118 Freeway will include a Costco and a Best Buy as well as office, retail and restaurant space on 18 acres.

Price Co., which operates 21 discount warehouse stores in four states, on Friday said that it is negotiating with a Montreal-based retail chain to form a joint venture to open and operate an undisclosed number of Price Clubs in Canada. The San Diego-based company is discussing the joint-venture proposal with Steinberg Inc., which operates grocery and retail stores in Canada and the United States. The discussions could be concluded "shortly," according to a Price Co.

Re "Shopper Killed in Shootout at Van Nuys Costco," Aug. 14: My wife was shopping at Costco Sunday. Standing at the checkout counter at the front of the store, she suddenly remembered she had forgotten to buy lamb chops, so she went back to the meat counter. Because of this sudden, fortuitous thought, she was some distance from the area where the gunfire occurred. She and others were herded out side doors (Costco handled the emergency beautifully), where she saw one 6-year-old vomiting from fear.

Re "Group Accuses U.S. Refineries of Driving Up Gasoline Prices," July 3: I bought gas at Costco, Chino Hills, last Friday for $1.63; down the street at Mobil it was $1.93. Later in the day I filled up at Arco in Lost Hills, north of the Grapevine, for $1.59. Two other stations there had it for the same price. One other had it for $1.69 and another for $1.79. Coming home last Sunday I filled up at Arco in Salinas for $1.69, while across the street at Shell it was $1.91. Driving home through Santa Barbara I noticed Union 76 had it for $2.01.

I was excited by James Flanigan's "Speeding Up Interest in Fuel Cell Technology" (May 14), until I got halfway through it only to find out that ChevronTexaco and Shell are among those extremely interested in this new technology. What depressing news. It just means more of the same: profits at any expense to the consumer, huge spikes in fabricated costs and the ability to raise prices way out of line with the economy. Isn't there some way to invite companies such as Wal Mart, Costco and Southwest Airlines to run this new technology?

The City Council, acting as the Community Redevelopment Agency, paved the way for a membership warehouse store at 147th Street and Compton Boulevard. With approval from three council members, construction of the 110,000-square-foot Costco warehouse store will begin in July on the nine-acre site west of the San Diego Freeway. Completion is expected in November. The city expects $350,000 a year in sales-tax revenue from the store, City Manager Kenneth Jue said.