Santa Sells, Stores SayIf Santa Claus is...

Santa Sells, Stores Say

If Santa Claus is coming to town, that may tell you whether retailers think their sales are naughty or nice, according to Western Temporary Services, based in Walnut Creek, Calif.

The firm has developed a Santa index, a barometer that has shown that store demand for Santa rises when holiday shopping sales drop.

“Some stores use Santa as a customer-builder,” explained Jenny Zink, national program director of Western’s marketing and Santa divisions. “If there is no Santa, that means sales are strong and the floors are so filled with products that there’s no room for Santa. If sales are bad, some stores get desperate and say, ‘Let’s get a Santa to bring in some crowds . . . . When it comes to building sales, retailers believe in Santa.”

And this year, early Christmas sales seem to be soft, the firm reports, since the demand for temporary stand-ins for Santa Claus is up about 15%.

Air Force Stole the Show

The Air Force and its partners at Northrop went to great lengths at the rollout of the B-2 stealth bomber last week to ensure that news photographers were able to shoot only from a low position directly in front of the aircraft.

It was a matter of pressing national security to protect certain design details in the rear of the aircraft, they said. Or was it? Northrop’s own photographers were able to shoot their picture from the top of a nearby building, capturing many more details of the bomber than any news photographer.

The company published its photo in a full-page Times advertisement the following day. “The men and women of Northrop call it our job,” the ad says. Asked why reporters didn’t get the same access as Northrop and Air Force photographers, a company official said only that the Air Force didn’t want journalists on the roof.

But This Is Video City!

Sorry, but Los Angeles will just have to wait another month or two for the Videocart.

The Video-what?

Well, the Videocart is a high-tech shopping cart that comes complete with a video display screen that flashes advertisements as grocery shoppers whiz down the supermarket aisles. They are made by a Chicago company, Information Resources, that would eventually like to see them in every store from coast to coast.

And today was supposed to be the day that these gadgets--which have already run into snafus during testing in Chicago and Atlanta--got their first West Coast workout. A Vons store in Hermosa Beach was to be the site. Alas, all has been postponed until January.

Said a Vons spokeswoman: “They ran into too many glitches.”

He Must Take Long Showers

When Don J. Hargens of Pasadena opened the water bill for his cabin near Big Bear Lake, he thought someone had used his garden hose to replenish the lake. The bill for 57 days was $10,070.37.

The folks at Southern California Water Co. were unfazed. “It happens quite frequently,” said a billing clerk. “It’s not a big thing. Just a misread on the meter. All they have to do is call us and we’ll read it again.”

Talking Turkey About Tuna

The three-week catch of giant blue fin tuna off the Southern California coast by commercial fishing boats came to a halt last Wednesday night with the full moon and subsequent storm and rough seas.

“On dark nights schools of fish appear as big white spots in the ocean, but during a full moon it’s too light and you can’t see the spots,” explained Tony (Mama) Vidovich, 63, a lifelong San Pedro fisherman. So the boats did not go out when the moon was full or during the stormy weather.

The fishermen stayed home and had one of the best Thanksgivings in years celebrating landing the giant tuna that resulted in their biggest paychecks ever. They are hoping there are still more of the big fish out there to catch.

The two biggest Pacific blue fin tuna in history were brought in last Tuesday, one weighing 840 pounds, the other 850, noted Vidovich, the official weigher for the local fishermen’s union.