Pace Inc

A long-simmering rivalry between the two giants of the picante sauce industry--Pace Foods Inc. and Pet Inc.--has erupted in a spicy legal battle in Texas. But the leader of the salsa market in California--La Victoria Foods--doesn't seem to mind. "That's swell for us," commented Don Potter, a food marketing consultant who handles advertising for La Victoria. "They're fighting on two fronts. They're fighting each other when they should be fighting the battle for the customers."

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration accused a Los Angeles muffler manufacturer Tuesday of committing 276 safety violations and proposed penalties of $91,300. The firm, Pace Setter Inc., failed to properly install safety guards on numerous punch press machines at its South-Central Los Angles plant "although the company had a history of five crushing amputation injuries to employees dating back to 1983," OSHA said.

The acquisitions by Sony Corp. and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. of two of Hollywood's crown jewels, Columbia Pictures and MCA, are likely to strengthen Japan's hand in directing debates over key issues in entertainment. While Sony and Matsushita are fierce competitors, they have a history of working closely together when they have interests in common.

Barry Minkow, a whiz kid entrepreneur who built a small carpet-cleaning business into a multimillion-dollar enterprise, needed money desperately last year. So he turned for help to 56-year-old Jack M. Catain Jr. Their relationship, however, turned into extortion, in the words of a federal prosecutor. In fact, law enforcement authorities have long speculated that Catain is a major organized crime figure, and on Nov. 7, he was convicted in a counterfeiting scheme.

In the nearly six months since the Orange County Performing Arts Center opened, the Costa Mesa facility has been tested by performers, examined by audiences and judged by critics. But none will be able to understand the Center's inner workings better than the group visiting May 14 and 15. That's when chief executives of major U.S. performing arts centers will gather at Costa Mesa's Westin South Coast Plaza Hotel.

At a time when most other major U.S. industries are fearing economic fallout from the stock market collapse, the booming U.S. petrochemical industry appears poised to enter its second consecutive year of robust growth and record profits, industry analysts said. "Petrochemicals will be one of the strongest industries in the American economy next year because of the weak dollar," said John Dosher, managing director of Houston-based Pace Consultants Inc. "No other U.S.

West Hollywood is an enigma. Not only has the young city entered the vanguard of the proletariat in rent control and minority rights, it has also become a citadel of bourgeois consumerism. Within the 1.9-square-mile city of 40,000 are some of the region's finest restaurants, luxury hotels, art galleries, clothing designers and, surrounding the Pacific Design Center, interior-design showrooms clustered in a district called the Avenues of Design.

To look at them, nobody would have thought they could do it: An insurance adjuster who couldn't seem to hold down a job. A family man who ran a small janitorial business. A former UCLA linebacker who taught himself accounting. And the kid with the big mouth and an overdose of charm.

Managers of the Orange County Performing Arts Center predict that next week's opening will usher in a time of considerable struggle, financial and artistic. "Everybody thinks we just throw our doors open and we're home free," says Thomas R. Kendrick, the center's executive director, "but it won't happen that way." The main hurdle, Kendrick says, will be raising money to run the facility during the 5 to 10 years before the center can tap its projected endowment of $64 million.