Stores

For most retail stores, staying in business for only a few days would be considered a major flop. But a growing number of merchants are opening shops and abruptly shutting them down soon after -- on purpose. These quickie retail operations -- known as pop-ups -- are showing up throughout Southern California and around the nation, filling in the gaps at recession-battered shopping centers for a fraction of the regular rents. Once limited to seasonal shops and dusty liquidation centers, pop-up stores are now being opened by some of the nation's biggest retailers.

Navin Megji calls it "the thoroughfare" -- a stretch of San Vicente Boulevard that isn't a shopping district so much as a racetrack for commuters. Yet it's this strip of posh Brentwood where the 25-year-old boutique owner set up Feature -- a chic, fashion-forward enclave selling splatter-paint mini dresses and fitted boyfriend jackets from designers such as Alexander Wang, Vena Cava and Wayne. "There's not a lot of walking traffic," said Megji, who, on a recent Monday in her 1,000-square-foot shop, was spending most of her time refolding lingerie and doing paperwork.

Los Angeles' ban on new medical marijuana dispensaries is invalid, a Superior Court judge said Monday in a decision that undermines the city's 4-month-old drive to shut down hundreds of the stores. The judge issued an injunction banning enforcement of the moratorium against Green Oasis, a dispensary in Playa Vista that had challenged the ban. But city officials acknowledged the ruling would effectively block current efforts to enforce the ban against other dispensaries. The decision came on the day the Obama administration issued guidelines that limit federal prosecution of medical marijuana users and dispensaries.

With its moratorium on new medical marijuana dispensaries declared unlawful, the Los Angeles City Council is now poised to act quickly on a strict ordinance that it has struggled with fitfully for more than two years. On Tuesday, the city attorney's office delivered a draft that some members want the council to take up within a week. The sudden acceleration stems from a Superior Court ruling Monday that left the city unable to enforce its ban and derailed its four-month-old drive to shut down new dispensaries.

Toys R Us Inc. will open FAO Schwarz boutiques in 585 of the retailing giant's stores in time for the holidays. The company, which bought FAO Schwarz in May, also is relaunching the high-end brand's website. FAO Schwarz has two stand-alone stores, one each in New York and Las Vegas. The boutiques, which are to open starting Sunday, will offer toys ranging in price from $2.99 to $64.99, including FAO Schwarz's annual holiday ornament and collectible stuffed teddy bear. Privately held Toys R Us also is publishing FAO Schwarz's holiday catalog, featuring such exclusive toys as a Steiff Karl Lagerfeld Teddy Bear, which wears designer clothing, for $1,499.

Bashing pint-size radio-controlled monster trucks around bumpy dirt tracks has always been a blast for Dan Dunst, who opened a hobby shop specializing in the pricey toys near downtown Los Angeles last year. But his store, VG Racing, was soon broadsided by the sour economy. Sales at the shop and its online sites have slipped over the last six months, and now Dunst and his wife, Sarah, have to figure out whether the company can continue. "I'm being run over," said Dunst, 50, who also designs and manufacturers custom roll cages for the zippy vehicles that sell for $250 to $800 or more.

Macy's Inc. posted another quarterly loss Wednesday as consumers continued to scrimp on purchases, but the department store chain said the results were stronger than expected and that it was encouraged by its new, locally focused merchandise structure. The company said it lost $35 million, or 8 cents a share, for the third quarter ended Oct. 31, compared with a loss of $44 million, or 10 cents, for the same period a year earlier. Sales totaled $5.3 billion, down 3.9% from $5.5 billion in the third quarter of 2008.

A few miles from Los Angeles City Hall, a small experiment in marijuana regulation has been underway for years. While the state's largest city passed a flawed moratorium, failed to enforce it, debated proposed rules endlessly and watched flummoxed as dispensaries multiplied, West Hollywood pressed ahead. Confronted with its own dispensary explosion in 2005, the city surrounded by L.A. imposed a moratorium on dispensaries, clamped interim rules on the ones that were open, passed a strict ordinance and capped the number allowed at four, all within two years.

Two Los Angeles City Council committees rejected the advice of the city attorney and voted Monday to approve an ordinance that allows marijuana dispensaries to continue to sell the drug to people with a doctor's recommendation. The city attorney's office has maintained for a year and a half that Los Angeles has no choice but to ban sales because state law and court decisions are clear that collectives can only cultivate marijuana.

Trying to maintain "budgetary equilibrium" in a bleak economy, New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art said Thursday it was cutting 74 positions from its merchandising staff immediately and plans to trim the rest of its workforce by about 10% before July 1. Thursday's reductions -- which the museum said represented 27% of its full-time and 9% of its part-time retail positions -- come on top of 53 other jobs that previously were eliminated by closing eight...