Sam S Club

Isis Perkins drives her Lexus to the new Sam's Club gas station in Catonsville a few times a week and waits in a long line to fill up on premium gasoline at a price that she can't find anywhere else. She used to pay about $33 to fill her car's tank -- but that changed when Sam's Club opened at the end of June. At $1.40 a gallon for members, Perkins pulled up to the premium gas pump and paid only $21 this week. "Where else can you go and do this?" said Perkins, of Randallstown. "Am I not going to come here?"

A mostly closed shopping center in Essex could become the home of big-box retailers and a supermarket. The Diamond Point Plaza, which has struggled since losing Sam's Club and Ames stores, is under contract to a Pikesville developer who is lining up retailers. America's Realty LLC, which turns around distressed shopping centers, expects to close on the $18 million purchase of the center and 6 additional acres on Eastern Boulevard and Diamond Point Road within 60 days, said Carl Verstandig, company chief executive officer.

Sam's Club, the warehouse club division of Wal-Mart Stores Inc., will open at Westview Mall in March, completing the final phase of the Catonsville mall's $20 million redevelopment. Fairfax, Va.-based Peterson Cos., which has been redeveloping Westview since buying it with a 40 percent vacancy rate in late 1997, said yesterday that it has finalized a lease with the retailer. The company, one of the Washington area's largest privately owned retail developers, said it expects to start the second phase of mall reconstruction by the end of the month.

A decision by Sam's Club to leave a Baltimore waterfront retail development is not a sign that retail can't work in the largely industrial area, the owners of the project said yesterday. Sam's Club is relocating its store in Port Covington - near the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Bridge in South Baltimore - to a site in Glen Burnie near more stores and housing, a spokesman for Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Sam's Club confirmed yesterday. A Wal-Mart also on the 273,000- square-foot retail site will remain.

LARRY FLYNT promised us a classy joint down there on The Block, the Taj Mahal of strip clubs, a place where you could gawk at naked, gyrating women wrapped around dance poles and still feel good about yourself. Of course, bringing class to The Block is not just like putting lipstick on a pig, it's like slipping a nice string of pearls around the pig's neck, too. But ol' Larry, he said his new Hustler Club would be something special. No sleaze, he said. First-class operation, he said.

A couple of times each year, I pick up and leave town. I try not to slam the door behind me or run screaming from the house or make the tires squeal as I tear out of the neighborhood because people would talk. But there has never been any question that these little trips are necessary for my mental health. And there has never been any debate about my going. My husband never objects -- he considers it part of our bargain -- and the kids claim not to care one way or the other. But this time, when I announced my plans to visit an old friend in upstate New York, there was no mistaking the sighs of relief.

A mostly closed shopping center in Essex could become the home of big-box retailers and a supermarket. The Diamond Point Plaza, which has struggled since losing Sam's Club and Ames stores, is under contract to a Pikesville developer who is lining up retailers. America's Realty LLC, which turns around distressed shopping centers, expects to close on the $18 million purchase of the center and 6 additional acres on Eastern Boulevard and Diamond Point Road within 60 days, said Carl Verstandig, company chief executive officer.

Construction has begun on a Parole warehouse shopping club twice thesize of a typical grocery store.Sam's Club, a division of Wal-Mart Stores Inc., will open its doors by midsummer, said spokesman Timothy Adams.The members-only warehouse, a one-story, no frills structure thatwill carry a mix of products at wholesale prices, is being built on 20 acres off Generals Highway, across from Annapolis Mall. Workers have begun clearing the area to prepare for construction, for which thecounty granted a building permit March 6.While Wal-Mart, a Bentonville, Ark.-based discounter, has become the nation's No. 1 retailerby building a base in rural, largely under-served areas of the Midwest and South, Sam's Clubs have typically opened in busier, more competitive areas, Adams said.

IN DECIDING whether to cheer that Congress has finally added a prescription drug benefit to Medicare, it should be helpful that lawmakers on the far left and far right hate the legislation about equally. Generally, that's a sign of a compromise in the center, and a well-balanced approach. This deal, though, even 15 years in the making, was not quite ripe. Most troubling is that the only people really happy with it -- apart from President Bush and other GOP leaders who have pulled off a major political victory -- are the drug industry lobbyists who get to expand their market with no curbs on costs.

Police LogAnnapolis: Someone stole a tool box full of tools worth $441 from a 1989 GMC truck parked at Sam's Club in the 2100 block of Generals Highway about 7 p.m. Monday.Pub Date: 12/20/96

The two visitors from Ireland peer into our refrigerator and gasp when they see the huge gallon jar of Mount Olive dill chips, which gleams like a barn silo in the harsh white light. "Is it that you love pickles?" asks one of the visitors. Then they stare at the 114-ounce tub of Heinz ketchup, enough to do the backstroke in, and the 96-ounce jug of Tropicana orange juice, which must have wiped out at least 3 acres of orange groves in Central Florida. "Dear God, you people must pack it away!"

Thank you to all who attended the Odenton Volunteer Fire Company Ladies Auxiliary lunch with the Easter Bunny on March 24. Thanks also are extended to the businesses that supported: Mars Supermarket, Sam's Club in Annapolis, Sam's Club in Maryland City, Safeway, Shopper's Food Warehouse, Piney Orchard Ice Arena, Crofton Bowling Center, Playwise Kids, Pizza Hut, Skate Zone, Bowie BaySox, Odenton Ace Hardware, McDonald's of Odenton and Herr's Potato Chips....

Some years ago, my wife and I came to the realization we weren't buying enough stuff we didn't need, so we joined Sam's Club. Now through the magic of wholesale club shopping, we pay twice as much for groceries, toiletries and incidentals as we used to -- mainly because of all the other things we pick up while we're there. The thing about Sam's Club -- and B.J.'s and Costco are the same -- is this: Go there for bread and milk and you might come home with an ottoman, too. Go for a tin of coffee and a bag of oranges and you could come back with a pup tent.

There's something empowering about grabbing a cart roughly the size of a Hummer, flashing your membership card at the door and heading for wide aisles where surprise finds await. I'm talking about membership warehouses such as Costco and Sam's Club, whose popularity continues to grow. Becky and Alan Trenda of Royal Oak, Mich., are examples of why. They hold memberships to Costco and Sam's Club to buy food, laundry supplies, bottled water and many other household necessities for their four kids, one dog and two cats.

IN DECIDING whether to cheer that Congress has finally added a prescription drug benefit to Medicare, it should be helpful that lawmakers on the far left and far right hate the legislation about equally. Generally, that's a sign of a compromise in the center, and a well-balanced approach. This deal, though, even 15 years in the making, was not quite ripe. Most troubling is that the only people really happy with it -- apart from President Bush and other GOP leaders who have pulled off a major political victory -- are the drug industry lobbyists who get to expand their market with no curbs on costs.

LARRY FLYNT promised us a classy joint down there on The Block, the Taj Mahal of strip clubs, a place where you could gawk at naked, gyrating women wrapped around dance poles and still feel good about yourself. Of course, bringing class to The Block is not just like putting lipstick on a pig, it's like slipping a nice string of pearls around the pig's neck, too. But ol' Larry, he said his new Hustler Club would be something special. No sleaze, he said. First-class operation, he said.

Nearly a year after it expected to announce tenants, the developer of the Port Covington retail project, home of Sam's Club and Wal-Mart, has not broken ground on the project's third leg, a 100,000-square-foot retail strip center. When details of the project were unveiled in June last year, the developer, Fairfield, Conn.-based Starwood Ceruzzi Inc., said it planned to have 10 to 15 strip center tenants signed by Labor Day. The site - a wide swath of land in front of the Wal-Mart and Sam's Club stores - is dormant now, empty of construction equipment or mobile offices.

There's something empowering about grabbing a cart roughly the size of a Hummer, flashing your membership card at the door and heading for wide aisles where surprise finds await. I'm talking about membership warehouses such as Costco and Sam's Club, whose popularity continues to grow. Becky and Alan Trenda of Royal Oak, Mich., are examples of why. They hold memberships to Costco and Sam's Club to buy food, laundry supplies, bottled water and many other household necessities for their four kids, one dog and two cats.

The Social Security Administration, in the midst of a $100 million overhaul of its complex of buildings in Woodlawn, has found an unlikely place to house its displaced workers: a former Sam's Club. Workers began moving last week into the unused "big box" store, which is near the agency's campus abutting the Baltimore Beltway west of the city. The federal government leased the building for 10 years and will rotate up to 700 workers into the new offices at any time. "We'll use it as swing space as we do work on different buildings in Woodlawn," said Robert J. Shaw, a public information officer for the General Services Administration, which handles leasing.

A couple of times each year, I pick up and leave town. I try not to slam the door behind me or run screaming from the house or make the tires squeal as I tear out of the neighborhood because people would talk. But there has never been any question that these little trips are necessary for my mental health. And there has never been any debate about my going. My husband never objects -- he considers it part of our bargain -- and the kids claim not to care one way or the other. But this time, when I announced my plans to visit an old friend in upstate New York, there was no mistaking the sighs of relief.