Stores

It seemed like an obvious relationship: More babies were being born, so retailers opened more baby stores. Retailers were slow, at first, to spot the trend. But in the last several years, the rush to cash in on baby-mania has been evident at malls and shopping centers across the nation: * Baby-oriented retailers Baby Superstore and Gymboree Corp., both flush with cash after public stock offerings in late 1994, have been on aggressive expansion campaigns. * Gap Inc.

New Horizons Computer Learning Centers announced plans to open four franchise outlets in the Philippines and 10 franchise centers in South Korea. The new locations will offer various computer training courses, including business applications, operating systems such as Windows 95, desktop publishing and network training.

Once hard-to-find Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe stamps are now readily available at a U.S. Postal Service retail store dedicated exclusively to mail. The Postal Store opened for business at 7381 La Tijera Blvd. in Westchester Thursday and is the first in the chain of Postal Service stores to open in the Los Angeles area. The store is designed like a retail outlet with cases featuring items such as commemorative stamps, postal memorabilia and mail supplies.

Santa Ana-based Video Store Magazine reports that the home video industry is alive and well, despite a wave of consolidations that's occurring as big chains overwhelm smaller competitors. Blockbuster Video, the Fort Lauderdale-based giant, is by far the nation's largest chain, with 3,350 locations and nearly $2.7 billion in yearly revenue from rentals and sales. West Coast Video--based, oddly enough, in Philadelphia--is a distant second with 508 stores.

Once hard-to-find Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe stamps are now readily available at a U.S. Postal Service retail store dedicated exclusively to mail. The Postal Store opened for business at 7381 La Tijera Blvd. in Westchester Thursday and is the first in the chain of Postal Service stores to open in the Los Angeles area. The store is designed like a retail outlet with cases featuring items such as commemorative stamps, postal memorabilia and mail supplies.

I must have been the last person in Los Angeles to hear about the Broadway's Final Inventory Clearance Sale. Shopping is not my metier. The historic transformation going on right now as the venerable Broadway chain gives way to Macy's and Bloomingdale's might have slipped my notice entirely had not a helpful colleague suggested that the frenzied bargain hunting would be worth a look. The prices just dropped from 25% off to 40%, he said, raising the human comedy to its most exquisite pitch.

About 30 black community activists, mobilized by the Brotherhood Crusade, gather outside a South-Central wig shop to condemn the Korean American owners for allegedly refusing to wait on a black man. What really happened after the Rev. Lee May walked into the Accessory House on Vermont Avenue near Slauson Avenue? The story of what led to Tuesday's protest comes in two distinct versions: one claiming racism, the other blaming miscommunication.

About 30 community activists, ministers and residents gathered outside a Vermont Avenue wig and hat shop in South-Central Los Angeles Tuesday and announced that they will call for a boycott of the store if the owners do not apologize for allegedly refusing to wait on a black man. The Rev. Lee May, a pastor at the First AME Church in Pasadena, said at the gathering that on Jan. 20 he walked into Accessory House in South-Central to buy his wife a hat.

Chad Jones and Rob Fleece seem to always be side by side. They scuba dive and they surf together. They work together. They design and make wetsuits for Coral Reef, a surf and scuba shop in Westminster that the pair own and manage--together. "We're as close as brothers," Jones says. Jones and Fleece met when they were about 10 years old. Their friendship formed out of a mutual love of motorbikes.