Grocery Store

A 19-year-old woman described as mentally retarded was reported missing Sunday, a day after she failed to return from a grocery store, police said. Missing was Venus Rochelle Thomas of Orange, who was last seen about noon Saturday walking to a neighborhood market near her home at 700 W. La Veta Ave., said Sgt. Michael Pollok. Thomas, who is black, was described as having the mental capacity of a 9-year-old, Pollok said.

The father of a woman raped and murdered--possibly because she was white--has called for racial calm after the arrests of seven black suspects in Charleston, S.C. "Revenge is no way to solve a problem," Clair McLauchlin said. "We don't want anything else horrible to happen." Missy McLauchlin, 25, was crossing the street to a grocery store when she was picked up by several men.

Alabama fullback Robert Stewart was arrested Wednesday night and charged with breaking into a car during the school's basketball game with Kentucky and taking a sweat shirt and a jacket. Coach Bill Curry said he is aware of the arrest and is evaluating Stewart's status. "Robert has been a model citizen for us," the coach said. "He has never been in any trouble up to this point. This is a very serious matter, and we want to be sure of all the facts."

Your coverage of Mayor Dave Garofalo of Huntington Beach does a great injustice to a man who commits so much of his energy and life to bettering his community. Garofalo gets a pittance of pay and spends almost all his waking hours in public service only to be nit-picked, slandered and victimized by exaggerated claims and accusations. Although The Times is making it front-page news (June 25), there is nothing new about the charges against Garofalo. He is being attacked for selling ads in his newspaper and visitors guide.

A 74-year-old woman whose grocery store has been broken into 13 times shot and killed a would-be robber who wounded her husband, sheriff's deputies said. "I let him have it in the belly," Lillian Speer said. "That's where I thought I shot. I was told later he was shot in the heart." The dead man was identified as Benjamin V. San Jose, 47, an ex-convict with a record for robberies and narcotics offenses going back 20 years, said Sonoma County Sheriff's Sgt. Robert Nelson.

The Goldstein brothers--Joseph, Max and Edward--who founded Boys Markets would scarcely know their business today. They started it in the 1920s, soon after moving to California from Illinois. To support the family after their father's death, Joe and his younger brothers trundled produce and groceries door-to-door in a pushcart and sold from a produce stand on Telegraph Road in East Los Angeles. Around 1924, the brothers opened a grocery store at that location.

Alarmed by plans for aWal-Martgrocery store in Chinatown, a city planning committee Tuesday approved a temporary ban on large retail chain stores setting up shop in the downtown district. In a 2-1 vote, members of the Los Angeles Planning and Land Use Management panel found that if the city doesn't act, an infusion of big-box stores could endanger the unique cultural character of Chinatown. The viability of the historic neighborhood is at risk, said committee Chairman Ed Reyes. Reyes and fellow committee member Jose Huizar instructed the city's Planning Department to prepare an ordinance that would temporarily ban chain stores larger than 20,000 square feet from gaining permits.

AUSTIN, Texas -- It was the final day of the South by Southwest music festival and conference and Echo Park-based band NO  had just completed its last performance of the week, this one on the rooftop of a grocery store. It was the band's eighth show in five days, or maybe its ninth -- lead singer Bradley Hanan Carter, his voice slightly strained after the performance, had lost count.  NO was just one of about 2,500 bands performing in Austin at this year's festival, hoping to snare the attention of approximately 10,000 registrants who each day had more than 100 stages of music to choose from.