Stores In Baltimore

Baltimore County has been slapped with three suits by adult video store operators who say that a new county law forcing them to move is unfair and illegal.The suits, filed by operators of stores in Towson and Essex and a countywide chain, allege that the law restricting adult video stores to manufacturing districts amounts to censorship. The law took effect in March."The Baltimore County Adult Entertainment Law is vague, ambiguous, overly broad and lacking in standards so as to be subject to manipulation for purposes of censorship," according to the suit filed recently in U.S. District Court in Baltimore by Allno Enterprises Inc., the operator of 104 Video Adult Sales and Gifts, which is across from a Catholic church in the 1700 block of Eastern Blvd.

Positioning itself as a low-cost alternative to existing grocery stores, Food Lion Inc. has begun a major push into the Baltimore metropolitan area, opening a store in Randallstown yesterday and making final preparations to open one in Perry Hall next week.Two other stores in Baltimore County are under construction, and leases have been signed for two sites in Anne Arundel County, said officials at the Salisbury, N.C.-based grocery chain.Several real estate sources said the grocery chain is aiming to open 20 to 25 stores in the Baltimore-Washington area within two years, but company officials are tight-lipped over their expansion plans.

TOWSON -- County police are seeking a man charged with robbery and grand theft at three Sally Beauty Supply stores in Baltimore County. All three stores were robbed of hair clippers.Derrick Christopher Lanham, 31, of the 2300 block of Fire House Road in Landover, is one of two men linked to several robberies of Sally stores in Baltimore, Anne Arundel and Prince George's County in August and September, police said.The other man, James Louis Adams, 33, of the 40000 block of New Market Turner Road in Mechanicsville, turned himself into police last week.

Save-A-Lot Food Store, the fast-growing St. Louis-based grocery chain that stocks its shelves with national brand knockoffs such as Bubba Cola and Winkies, opened its first Baltimore location yesterday, anchoring the new Midtown Market shopping center at Howard and 21st streets.Instead of Wisk, Mountain Dew and Pledge, shoppers will find Frisk, Mountain Holler and Honor in the 39,000-square-foot store.The chain, which runs 709 stores in 31 states and opened 108 stores last year, offers mostly custom-brand products in a single size and promises savings of up to 40 percent.

Tired of battling larger grocery chains that have begun to dominate the South Carroll market, the owners of the Harvest Fare Supermarket in Eldersburg Plaza have decided to call it quits.The store, a fixture at the strip center for 15 years, will begin a liquidation sale today.Harvest Fare, whose customers continue to refer to it as "George's," has experienced a steady decline in business in recent years, even as the burgeoning Sykesville-Eldersburg area has lured Giant, Food Lion and Wal-Mart stores -- all at or near the busy intersection of Liberty Road and Route 32.The Baltimore-based B. Green Co. purchased the supermarket, originally known as George's IGA, from owner George Mezardash in March 1994, changing the name to Harvest Fare.

Sears, Roebuck and Co. converted five National Tire Warehouse Stores in Baltimore this week to a new store format and renamed them National Tire and Battery Stores.The conversion is part of a nationwide effort by Sears to turn 275 NTW stores that it acquired with the purchase of Western Auto in 1988 into a more appealing format. Sears had operated the stores with the NTW name.The company said it plans to build 100 NTB stores every year until it has about 700 stores nationwide.Market surveys showed that most people consider tire shopping a chore.

Sidney S. Epstein, 92, CEO of Epsteins discount chainSidney S. Epstein, who retired as chief executive officer of L. Epstein and Sons Inc., a discount clothing and furniture chain he co-founded with his brother, died Wednesday of pneumonia at Levindale Hebrew Geriatric Center and Hospital. He was 92.Epsteins, which was the last of the family-owned and -operated general department stores in Baltimore and Maryland's oldest, closed the doors of its remaining seven stores in 1991.In its prime, the chain had 11 stores, at such locations as Park Avenue, Lexington Street, Eastern Avenue, Northwood, Westminster, Joppatowne, Glen Burnie and Dundalk.

LAS VEGAS -- Chesapeake Bagel Bakery, a 135-store chain based in McLean, Va., plans to open 11 stores in the region over the next year.Three of them will be in the Baltimore area and eight in the Washington area, Alan Manstof, the company's co-founder, said at the International Council of Shopping Centers convention.The expansion is expected to mean nearly $4 million in site development and the creation of about 275 jobs, about half of them full-time positions.Chesapeake Bagel, which has about 50 stores in the region, will open two stores in Baltimore County and its first in Baltimore on Pratt Street in the Inner Harbor area over the next several months, Manstof said.

Abraham Shoken, whose long life was divided between hard times in Poland and better ones in the United States, died at Sinai Hospital early yesterday after a stroke. He was 91.The only member of his family to survive Nazi concentration camps, Mr. Shoken spent most of his new life running neighborhood grocery stores in Baltimore."He lived two different lives in equal portions, from birth to 1945 he experienced the culture of European Jewry. When that culture ended, he came to America and lived roughly another 45 years," said Fred Shoken of Baltimore, one of his three sons.

In a major mid-Atlantic thrust, Men's Wearhouse Inc. yesterday confirmed plans to enter the Baltimore-Washington market with about 20 stores, offering a sartorial alternative to consumers but posing a threat to competitors.The Fremont, Calif., company, among the nation's largest discount retailers of men's tailored clothing, expects to open about eight stores next spring -- two in Baltimore and six in Washington.Within 18 months, the chain plans about four stores in Baltimore and 16 in Washington.

Groups say CVS selling expired items About 20 food union representatives and members of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now rallied Thursday outside a CVS drugstore in Northeast Baltimore, alleging that the pharmacy sells expired over-the-counter medicine and milk products. The demonstration was part of a nationwide protest in nine states organized by Change to Win, a coalition of seven unions and 8 million workers fighting for affordable health care and retirement benefits.

Regional department store chain Boscov's Inc. filed yesterday for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and said it would close 10 stores, including anchors in three of the Baltimore area's largest malls, as the company suffers from slumping sales amid the housing and credit crunch. Boscov's, based in Reading, Pa., will begin liquidation sales immediately and will close those "underperforming stores" when the entire inventory is sold, which officials estimate will take one to two months. About 1,400 employees, including about 400 in the Baltimore area, will lose their jobs.

The TastyKake truck comes three times a week to the corner store on North Mount Street, rumbling past drug dealers and piles of trash to fill the racks with cupcakes and cream-filled chocolate bars. The Utz man comes twice to deliver little bags of chips, each one containing about 20 percent of the recommended daily intake of fat. But if the owner of Blooming Sun Market, Grace Lyo, wants to sell fruits or vegetables, "I have to go to Sam's Club and get them myself." As public health researchers grapple with the alarmingly high rates of diabetes, obesity and heart disease in poor urban neighborhoods, they are turning their attention to corner stores.

Sender "Sandy" Shapiro, a Holocaust survivor who owned and operated small grocery stores in Baltimore for many years, died Sunday at Northwest Hospital Center in Randallstown of complications from pneumonia. He was 84. The Pikesville resident moved to Baltimore from New Jersey in 1962 and operated a grocery store in West Baltimore, relocating after the 1968 riots to the city's Pigtown neighborhood. Born in 1923 in Sosnowitz, Poland, Mr. Shapiro went to work in his early teens, helping support his family in a cap-making workshop run by his father.

Shoppers Food Warehouse plans to open its first new Baltimore City supermarket in a shopping center to be built in East Baltimore, an area targeted by city officials in an initiative to bring much needed grocery stores to the city. Officials of Manekin LLC, the developer and part owner of the former industrial site on Eastern Avenue at Interstate 95, just east of Johns Hopkins Hospital Bayview campus, said yesterday they had been in negotiations with the supermarket chain for about three years.

Marjorie Zentz, a longtime handbag buyer for the old Stewart's department stores in Baltimore, died of cancer Monday at a Charlotte, N.C., nursing home. She was 79. Marjorie McClellan was born in Columbus, Ga., and as child moved to Baltimore, where she lived for most of her life before moving to North Carolina three years ago to be near her son, John R. Zentz. She was a graduate of Eastern High School. During World War II, Mrs. Zentz worked in the office of the old Glenn L. Martin Co. plant in Middle River.

When Reginald Sample leaves his West Baltimore home to go grocery shopping for his 94-year-old mother, he has two choices: a pricey nearby convenience store or a 25-minute trek through drug-ravaged streets to the Safeway in Pigtown. "It's a real issue having to leave the community for your basic needs," says Sample, 49, an office manager who lives in Harlem Park. "Your basic needs should be here. You don't mind leaving the neighborhood for extravagant things." Throughout Baltimore, which has lost about 15 percent of its supermarkets in the past two years, many neighborhoods are underserved by grocers and bus lines.

Discount retailer Ames Department Stores Inc. is preparing to close two Baltimore-area stores early next year as part of a larger plan to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The stores to close are the Annapolis Road store in southern Baltimore and the York Road store in Timonium. Two Ames stores in the city will remain open, as will 19 others across Maryland. Rocky Hill, Conn.-based Ames plans to close a total of 54 stores in 11 states by March. About 3,000 employees will be affected.

John Francis Baker, former president of the Hecht Co. department stores, died Wednesday of pneumonia and complications from Parkinson's disease at the Genesis Eldercare Network at Spa Creek in Annapolis. He was 83 and had lived in Roland Park before retiring to Annapolis seven years ago. Mr. Baker was named general manager and vice president of what was then called the Hecht-May department stores in Baltimore in 1962. He was subsequently promoted to the chain's presidency and board chairmanship of what is now the Hecht's stores in Baltimore and Washington.

Laundromax, a Florida chain that hopes to do for coin-operated laundries what Blockbuster did for video rentals, has targeted Baltimore as one of its top markets in an aggressive expansion. The 3-year-old, privately owned company said yesterday that it plans 20 superstores in the Baltimore area by 2004. It has opened two city stores so far. But, unlike in other cities where it is expanding, Laundromax will likely face tough competition from a more established, locally based chain of coin laundries.