New Owners

Shoppers scouring for good buys at bargain magnet C-Mart can see the changes on the sales floor. Workers replaced handwritten price tags with bar-coded tickets. Computerized machines are in, while old-fashioned cash registers are out. By January, with a click of a mouse, customers should be able buy discount designer clothes and furniture now found only at C-Mart's Joppatowne and Landover stores. C-Mart's new owners want to build the company into a national retailer. That is a challenging proposition: trying to balance the roots of this paper-and-pencil enterprise against ambitious goals to become a big chain.

What's in a name? Perhaps a change of direction for a restaurant. It can be subtle -- recently Trattoria La Piccola Roma became Ristorante Piccola Roma when new owners took over.The new owners are Arturo Silvestrini and Fausto Calabria, two aerospace engineers. Silvestrini's wife, Silvana Recine, manages Piccola Roma for them. She's an experienced restaurateur, whose family is involved with several places in Washington. Her vision is to make Piccola Roma a bit more of a white-tablecloth restaurant -- a little less a trattoria -- while not losing its comfortable feeling.

Almost one year after the Howard County Board of License Commissioners shut down a Jessup liquor store for selling beer to a minor, the board has granted another license for the same establishment.The ruling allows Joseph H. and Sook H. Chung to reopen Mel's Liquors in the 7900 block of Route 175.Paul H. Rappaport, an Ellicott City attorney who represented the couple, predicted that his clients would run a safe and lawful operation."When the store was sold to the previous owners, it sort of went downhill," said Rappaport, whose family in the 1950s originally owned the property.

Australian, reallyDon't expect an Outback clone when the Boomerang Pub opens in Federal Hill in another month or two. The new steak house at 1110 S. Charles St., where the Provident Savings Bank used to be, will be authentically Australian, say the new owners -- not an American restaurant with a theme flavor. What exactly does that mean? It means emu, kangaroo stew and game sausage on the menu as well as prime rib, sirloin steaks, shrimp and lobster. Entrees in the main dining room will run from $10 to $18, while the bar menu will be less.

This is the month for getaways. Come August, if we don't actually high-tail it out of town, most of us at least dream of doing so. Reading about others' great escapes can't compete with having an adventure of one's own, of course, but at least it offers the mind a mini-holiday.Wilderness lovers will appreciate Sheryl Clough's account in the August Sierra of kayaking solo along the Alaska coast from Petersburg to Wrangell. Having spent four weeks backpacking with two male friends who could not resist instructing her on everything from how to hold her paddle to how to flip a pancake, Clough is eager to leave them behind.

The sale of the Bandits to a consortium of investors from the area is on hold, awaiting approval by the American Hockey League."We received a request from current ownership seeking approval for transfer of the franchise and approved it," a spokesman for AHL president Dave Andrews said yesterday. "Our job now is to conduct a background check of the prospective owners and submit a report to the board of governors, which has to approve the deal by a three-fourths margin for it to go through."

NERVOUSLY watching the Dow Jones industrial average skid 116 points this week -- abruptly reversing the direction of last year's surge -- investors hope stocks resume their climb in this presidential election year. But read on:"Don't count on this year's election to support the market. True, during 1962-1983, election years averaged 13 percent gains -- and bulls use that result to support their optimism."However, in the period 1933-1961 and 1984-1995, election years were, on average, the worst-performing years of the four-year presidential cycle.

Having spent months overseeing the sale of a bankrupt restaurant at the historic Samuel Owings House, a federal judge yesterday was amazed to learn of a deal to dismantle the building to make way for a $20 million office tower."

The renovation of the Bay Ridge Gardens apartments in Annapolis has passed the halfway point.New carpeting is being laid, broken windows replaced, plumbing fixed and new appliances installed. But more is happening here than the sprucing up of an aging apartment complex. Amid the hammering, sawing and painting, a community is being reborn.The improvement has been a long time coming. For years, residents endured faulty plumbing, electrical hazards and broken windows. The complex in the southwest corner of the city became a haven for drug dealers.

In other cities, it's where you sit at the symphony that matters. Or whether you can get a table for four on a Saturday night at Le This or Le That Hot Restaurant.In Baltimore, it's where you sit at Camden Yards, especially today, on Opening Day.Will you be in the right place at the right time? Will you be able to tell the less fortunate office slaves tomorrow that George Will leaned over to discuss the intricacies of Cal's batting stance with you? That you bumped into Barry Levinson as he rushed in after the third inning (those flights from El Lay are always running late, don't you know)

If you ever went to Charlotte's or The Royal, you'd barely recognize the space now. The new owners of The Reserve have made improvements to the building at 1542 Light St., inside and out. They opened up the bricked-in windows, added a new sign out front and built a wood facade on the front of the corner building. But the most striking renovations happened inside. From the looks of it, everything except the floor, rafters and a couple of walls is new. There are two cement-topped bars inside The Reserve, one long one as you walk in and another at the back of the building.

C-Mart, the local retail institution known for piling its shelves with designer brands on the cheap, is going out of business next week, the victim of a sour economy where even the best deals couldn't bring out enough penny-pinching consumers. Shoppers once clamored outside the doors of the Harford County retailer for the chance to get a Prada handbag, Gucci sunglasses or Manolo Blahnik pumps. They traveled from New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania to rummage through the store's legendary cluttered shelves and jam-packed aisles hoping to find that couture dress.

Shoppers scouring for good buys at bargain magnet C-Mart can see the changes on the sales floor. Workers replaced handwritten price tags with bar-coded tickets. Computerized machines are in, while old-fashioned cash registers are out. By January, with a click of a mouse, customers should be able buy discount designer clothes and furniture now found only at C-Mart's Joppatowne and Landover stores. C-Mart's new owners want to build the company into a national retailer. That is a challenging proposition: trying to balance the roots of this paper-and-pencil enterprise against ambitious goals to become a big chain.

After sitting empty for a good chunk of baseball season, the Downtown Sports Exchange is back open with new owners and a fresh interior. DSX, a longtime pre- and post-game spot for sports fans, quietly re-opened this month after closing suddenly in June. Co-owner Art Masoero and his partners pumped some money into the place, and, for the most part, it pays off. I never spent much time at the old DSX, but the new DSX feels cleaner and slightly sharper than most bars nearby. The bar is topped with tile, not wood, and the stiff chairs pulled up to it are made of red metal.

The owners of a longtime fixture in Westminster's catering scene will soon call it quits. Tom McPherson and wife Colleen last month sold Boulevard & Beyond, the catering business's property and facility on Route 140, and will cease operations Dec. 31. Tom McPherson, who has operated the business with his wife since buying it from Wilhelm Ltd. Caterers in 1999, said competition has gotten too stiff in Carroll County. "We've had a decline in business because of an influx of competition," McPherson said.

WASHINGTON -- It's a familiar sight in Washington: The president of a new administration takes over and promises change. Stan Kasten isn't the leader of the free world, but he is about to be president of the Washington Nationals baseball club. And he's looking a lot like a political candidate as he strides purposefully around RFK Stadium on a recent game night shaking hands, signing autographs and asking fans what needs to change. The answer, he knows, is quite a bit. When Major League Baseball signs the paperwork turning the club over to its new owners - it is expected to happen by the end of the month - Kasten already will be deep into creating a team bearing little resemblance to the one he's inheriting.

WASHINGTON -- The D.C. Council last night approved a legislative package that effectively sealed the deal for the city to fund a baseball stadium that will be home to the Washington Nationals. Included in the package was a contract with the companies that will build the stadium on the Anacostia River waterfront. The contract was approved on a 9-4 vote - an outcome that had been expected. The council overcame objections to the deal last month by approving a $611 million cap on the city's costs.

A divided Howard County Alcoholic Beverage Hearing Board has voted to return a liquor license to new owners of an Elkridge business. The board voted, 3-2, to approve a new license for the owners of Elkridge Wine and Spirits, 6501 Huntshire Drive, which is off Meadowridge Road near the Interstate 95 bridge. The store has been closed since October, though the new licensees have been paying rent on it. "I'm swayed, but with great concern. I'll keep my fingers crossed," said board member Michael McFarland, who voted to approve the new license.

WASHINGTON - On April 29, the Washington Nationals announced with great fanfare that they were exercising a $4 million option for 2006 on outfielder Jose Guillen's contract. Rather than simply issue a news release, the team sat Guillen down next to club officials in the RFK Stadium media room and heralded the outfielder's talent and drive. The reason for the hoopla? The Nationals wanted to make a statement about not only their affection for Guillen but also their desire to keep players considered vital to the team's future success.

The defunct Sparrows Point shipyard reopened yesterday to celebratory speeches, a banjo-strumming band and tours in air-conditioned buses, but manufacturing and repair work at the 250-acre former Bethlehem Steel yard won't start until fall at the earliest, the new owners said. Boston-based Barletta Willis Investments bought the Baltimore County shipyard in early March for $9.75 million and plans to redevelop it as a vast industrial park, leasing space to barge building and ship repair companies and other businesses.