Stores In Maryland

In your average non-Y2K year, the Super Fresh on West 41st Street sells maybe two or three flashlights. That's it, over 365 days."You don't sell stuff like that," said manager Brian Miller. "Not in a grocery store."Well, Miller's grocery store sold about 700 flashlights in the past 30 days. Not surprisingly, he has expanded his flashlight display from the normal two hooks in Aisle 9.Even though officials and computer experts say reassuringly that Y2K bugs in computers have been exterminated in time for New Year's Eve tomorrow, some local residents are stocking up, not entirely convinced their power won't go out for at least a bit.Problems are feared because computers were programmed to read the last two digits for years and might recognize the year 2000 as 1900, but government and businesses have been working to correct the programming.

A basement storage room at the Maryland Comptroller's Office is rapidly filling with hundreds of cartons of cigarettes confiscated from smugglers -- a haul worth tens of thousands of dollars on the black market.Enforcement agents have lined up more storage space. They figure they are going to need it as they target bootleggers hoping to cash in on the cigarette tax increase that took effect in Maryland July 1."I really think as time goes by this situation is going to get worse," said Larry W. Tolliver, director of the comptroller's field enforcement division.

Grocery retailers across the United States have slowed their expansions in favor of refurbishing old sites and beefing up specialty departments, but in the Baltimore area a handful of chains are racing to build stores in a battle for market share.Supermarket construction has reached a frenzied, nearly unprecedented pace as local and national companies extend their reach into the region, real estate experts say.By the end of next year, more than 40 new or expanded stores will have opened in just over a three-year span, according to a study by KLNB Inc., the Towson real estate brokerage firm.

Kmart Corp., the nation's No. 2 discount retailer, has notified the Maryland Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation that it will close two stores in Maryland and lay off 147 employees by the end of April.Kmart will shut down its Bel Air store, in Tollgate Plaza at the intersection of U.S. 1 and Route 24, by April 21. The store employs 48 people, Kmart said in its filing with the state.A second store, in Suitland in Prince George's County, will close by mid-April. It employs 99 people, Kmart said.

What's in a name?The demise of a small business, if it's not protected.That has become the story of Gary Richard Shank, the former owner of a 27-year-old fishing, hunting and sporting goods shop in Essex. He has gone out of business, snuffed out by a 72-store chain that began opening stores in Maryland three years ago, he said.His undoing began at their introduction: Dick's Clothing and Sporting Goods Inc., meet Dick's Sporting Goods Inc.The latter is Shank's store started by his father, Richard.

Federal regulators have approved plans by Royal Ahold NV to sell four Martin's Food Market stores as a condition of its proposed acquisition of Giant Food Inc. of Landover, an official of another Ahold-owned chain said yesterday.The sales are apparently a victory for the United Food & Commercial Workers International Union, which fought to prevent the sales of Giant stores as part of the $2.7 billion merger. The union represents workers at Giant but not Martin's.Mark Cosby, vice president of advertising for Ahold subsidiary Giant Food Stores Inc. of Carlisle, Pa., said the Federal Trade Commission had approved sales of two Martin's supermarkets in Frederick as well as stores in Bel Air and Westminster.

Home Depot Inc., the dominant home improvement retailer in the Baltimore region, is about to get some competition from bTC North Carolina-based Lowe's Companies Inc.Lowe's will build a 150,000-square-foot superstore in Glen Burnie in June. The chain, which got its start in small communities and has expanded into new and bigger markets, is scouting sites for additional stores."It looks like Baltimore is a good area for the home improvement industry," said Clarissa Felts, a Lowe's spokeswoman, who said the chain has launched its broadest expansion in its 51-year-history.

WHEN HENRY Naviasky walks through a grocery store he doesn't see just cans, bottles and packages. He sees the eating patterns of the Baltimore area.Take those British crackers, he said, pointing to a package of Carr's Hob-nobs on the shelf of the Eddie's grocery store on Roland Avenue. North Baltimore seems to have a taste for British crackers, he said, and even for something called "digestive biscuits." But, he said, out in Columbia, British crackers don't draw much attention at Bun Penny Food & Wine.

Royal Ahold NV, the international food retailer buying Giant Food Inc. of Landover, said yesterday that it plans to sell as much as $2 billion worth of common shares to finance the acquisition.Royal Ahold said it might also issue convertible bonds to finance part of the $2.7 billion transaction.A syndicate of banks led by Goldman Sachs International and ABN AMRO Rothschild is preparing the offering, which will be detailed in a preliminary prospectus available Sept. 8, the company said.Ahold has set its offering for Sept.

Charles Bowers is a software developer who would like nothing better than to drop by his neighborhood computer store to look for bargains.Unfortunately, he says, the CompUSA store in Glen Burnie treats him more like a shoplifter than a customer.The Linthicum man, who is quadriplegic, has filed suit in federal court against three Comp-USA stores in Maryland claiming they are violating the Americans with Disabilities Act.Bowers says the entrances at the stores in Glen Burnie, Towson and Rockville are partially blocked by locked gates that require someone in a wheelchair to call an employee to gain access.

Comptroller Peter Franchot announced yesterday Maryland's first successful attempt at closing a real estate-related "tax-avoidance scheme," which yielded $10.8 million in back taxes. The amount represents three years' worth of taxes from a "major corporation" that was not identified because of tax confidentiality laws. Tax collectors have several other related audits under way and have determined that another company owes $5.7 million for using the same practice, officials said. Under the scheme, a company with stores in Maryland establishes a real estate investment trust to which its stores pay rent.

Department store chain Boscov's Inc. will begin liquidation sales today at 10 stores it is closing, including three in the Baltimore area. The Reading, Pa.-based department store chain, which has said its sales were hurt by a slowdown in consumer spending, received court approval yesterday to begin the clearance sales. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Gross signed an order authorizing a joint venture of Gordon Brothers Retail Partners LLC and Hilco Merchant Resources LLC to conduct the sales for the retailer.

Boscov's Inc. will turn over operations of its three Baltimore-area department stores by midmonth to a liquidator that will begin selling off inventory in a two-month store closing sale. Hurt by slumping sales, the department store chain filed Monday for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and said it would close 10 stores, including anchors in three of Baltimore's largest shopping centers: White Marsh Mall, Owings Mills Mall and Marley Station. Three other stores in Maryland - in Westminster, Frederick and Salisbury - will remain open.

ACCENTS 55 E. Padonia Road, Timonium / / 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays; 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Tuesdays, Thursdays; 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturdays; 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sundays / / 410-666-4800 ........................ MIKE TYLER AND MEMBERS of the Paszkiewicz family wanted to bring a little bit of Delaware down to Maryland. Six months after opening Accents, a successful accessories store in Rehoboth Beach, the team started a new branch -- with the same merchandise and layout--last November in Timonium.

Sleepy's Inc., a privately held mattress retailer, is moving into Maryland and taking over 14 stores it acquired through the bankruptcy of New Jersey-based Rockaway Bedding Inc. Bethpage, N.Y.-based Sleepy's opened stores in Westminster, Bel Air, Towson and Timonium last week. The remaining 10 stores will open throughout the state by Columbus Day, said Mike Bookbinder, executive vice president of Sleepy's. The mattress retailer, which has 471 stores in eight states, is in the midst of expanding along the East Coast.

Rite Aid Inc. took over 25 Eckerd stores in Maryland yesterday, including nine in the Baltimore region, shoring up its position as the second-largest drugstore chain in the state. The Maryland stores are part of Rite Aid's $4 billion deal for the Brooks and Eckerd chains, which was announced in August and completed yesterday. In all, Rite Aid bought 1,854 Brooks and Eckerd stores, and six distribution centers in 18 states, making it the largest drugstore chain on the East Coast, the company said.

Crown, a name long synonymous with gasoline in Baltimore, is fading away in Maryland. Two years after Crown Central Petroleum Corp. sold more than 150 gas stations and convenience stores in Maryland and Virginia, the buyer has decided to convert most of them to Chevron, Texaco or Shell stations. The move comes as dealers see national brands as a way to attract consumers with oil company credit card points and other loyalty programs in a highly competitive market. The Crown name will remain on a few stations in the Baltimore region where there are brand conflicts, said David Noland, vice president of Petroleum Marketing Group of Millersville, which owns the outlets in Maryland and Virginia.

Steve Granger, Suzanne and Joseph Verdecchia bought a Sears dealer store four years ago in Chester on Maryland's Eastern Shore with the intention of growing the business. Now, they wonder about the future of their store because a Kmart less than two miles away sells the same Craftsman products they do, after Kmart Corp. and Sears, Roebuck and Co. merged this spring. "I don't feel like I have a business that's salable," said Joseph Verdecchia, 63, who had planned to sell the shop by the end of next year.

Fighting for survival, discounter Kmart Corp. said yesterday that it would shrink again, closing an additional 326 stores and shedding 37,000 more workers in a bid to emerge from bankruptcy by April 30. Kmart, the 103-year-old company that pioneered discount retailing and enticed shoppers with its blue-light specials, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection a year ago because of weak sales, heavy debt and crushing competition. It has already closed 283 stores. The latest round of closings, which includes three stores in Maryland and a Texas distribution center, will leave the chain operating 1,500 stores, nearly a third fewer than the 2,114 it operated at its peak.

Unable to turn business around in the past year, bankrupt Ames Department Stores Inc. announced yesterday that it plans to close all of its 327 stores - including 20 in Maryland - and put 21,500 people out of work. The move, subject to approval in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, would bring an end to the Rocky Hill, Conn.-based regional discount retailer, founded in 1958 but now unable to compete with industry giants such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Target Corp. The chain intends to conduct "going out of business" sales for the next 10 weeks.