Men's clothing store Torino Ritz broken into five times in one year - Kelowna News - Castanet.net |
- Men's clothing store Torino Ritz broken into five times in one year - Kelowna News - Castanet.net
- Man accused of shoplifting arrested for assaulting troopers at Walmart in East Huntingdon - TribLIVE
- Protecting America's backbone from the coronavirus — Contributors — Bangor Daily News — BDN Maine - Bangor Daily News
| Posted: 23 Mar 2020 04:00 AM PDT The owners of men's high-end clothing store Torino Ritz are fed up with constant break-ins, after six years of doing good business in the community. The Lakeshore Road store has been broken into five times in the past twelve months, the latest being less than a week ago on Wednesday, Mar. 18. Each time, the store loses up to $25,000 worth of stock, says owner Vic Spolia. "This time we were all prepared, we had bars on the doors, bars in the windows as well. We spent a lot of money to make ourselves safe, but this time they came with a power tool to cut the hinges off. They did not stop. We could not stop them somehow. "They took a lot of stuff again from us, which hurts our bottom line, hurts our livelihood as well ... I don't know what else we can do." Spolia, who runs the business along with wife Sangeeta and son Vineesh, says they spent about $12,000 on window bars at the Mission Park store, after also paying for shatter-proof glass coating and other security features. He believes the police need more resource to combat thefts, and the public need to take more responsibility for helping others in the community after a delivery driver who witnessed the incident did not take any action to help. "People who were watching this should have called police, they should have noted down the license plate number or something, but nobody did anything. The delivery guy ... next time it could be his truck broken into. We all need to help each other. "Me and my wife, we both drove in here at three o'clock in the morning and we stayed here till 7 a.m. because we were scared they could come back again, but that's not fair." It feels strategic, says Sangeeta, considering the thieves strike when new seasonal stock has arrived, and at the same time of the morning when they know security patrol is not in the area. "Being a small business in town, I don't know why they are attacking us again and again and again. It's like somebody wants us to close." It's very tough on the family financially as well as emotionally and mentally, says Vineesh. "Even if you get the insurance money later, you can't really replace the lost sales at the time. If you don't have the right clothing at the right time, or the right pants to go with the right shirt, you can't sell any of it." The family is asking the public to keep an eye out on classifieds listings for any items with the Torino Ritz tag. If you have any information about the break-ins, please contact Kelowna RCMP at 250 762 3300.  |
| Man accused of shoplifting arrested for assaulting troopers at Walmart in East Huntingdon - TribLIVE Posted: 23 Mar 2020 11:07 AM PDT  You are solely responsible for your comments and by using TribLive.com you agree to our Terms of Service. We moderate comments. Our goal is to provide substantive commentary for a general readership. By screening submissions, we provide a space where readers can share intelligent and informed commentary that enhances the quality of our news and information. While most comments will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive, moderating decisions are subjective. We will make them as carefully and consistently as we can. Because of the volume of reader comments, we cannot review individual moderation decisions with readers. We value thoughtful comments representing a range of views that make their point quickly and politely. We make an effort to protect discussions from repeated comments either by the same reader or different readers We follow the same standards for taste as the daily newspaper. A few things we won't tolerate: personal attacks, obscenity, vulgarity, profanity (including expletives and letters followed by dashes), commercial promotion, impersonations, incoherence, proselytizing and SHOUTING. Don't include URLs to Web sites. We do not edit comments. They are either approved or deleted. We reserve the right to edit a comment that is quoted or excerpted in an article. In this case, we may fix spelling and punctuation. We welcome strong opinions and criticism of our work, but we don't want comments to become bogged down with discussions of our policies and we will moderate accordingly. We appreciate it when readers and people quoted in articles or blog posts point out errors of fact or emphasis and will investigate all assertions. But these suggestions should be sent via e-mail. To avoid distracting other readers, we won't publish comments that suggest a correction. Instead, corrections will be made in a blog post or in an article.  |
| Posted: 23 Mar 2020 06:31 AM PDT  Linda Coan O'Kresik | BDN A bare West Market Square in downtown Bangor. The activity along Main Street has slowed down since the coronavirus hit Maine. As of noon Sunday, March 22, 89 Maine residents have been confirmed positive for the coronavirus, according to the state. Click here for the latest coronavirus news, which the BDN has made free for the public. You can support this mission by purchasing a digital subscription. My great-grandfather Julius used to say, "Small businesses are the backbone of America." He immigrated here from Romania with just enough money to buy a loaf of bread and apprenticed as a tailor before eventually opening his own men's clothing store. We've all heard the phrase "America's backbone" so many times that it has become cliche. But it's cliche for a reason. Small businesses play a crucial economic role in our state, making up 99 percent of all businesses and employing 57 percent of the private workforce. They help to form a cyclical, regenerative economy that supports all of our communities. Main Street businesses also help to create the sense of place that makes our communities feel like home. Small businesses truly are the backbone of America, but the COVID-19 pandemic, the illness caused by the coronavirus, threatens them all. If we don't act swiftly to protect that backbone, it will paralyze our economy, our communities and our nation. Unfortunately, the crisis is not ending anytime soon. On Wednesday a leaked federal government report showed that the pandemic could last 18 months or more. That means we have to implement policies that support small-business owners, workers and communities for the long haul. Here is a blueprint to save America's backbone: Direct and immediate cash flow to small businesses affected by COVID-19. Congress is proposing direct cash assistance for American households. This is laudable, but will not really help most small businesses. Even if consumers have more money in their pockets, they will not be able to spend it during a quarantine. The Small Business Administration has been offering low-interest loans to small businesses. However, given that this crisis has no end in sight, small-business owners are rightfully wary at taking on loans, regardless of the interest rate. What small-business owners need is direct cash assistance in order to not go under. They need to keep their employees paid, cover their health insurance premiums and paid sick time, and pay rent. Sen. Susan Collins has proposed an innovative solution of providing small-business owners with $300 billion in federal loans that would be forgiven if they keep paying their workers, but it is not enough. The Main Street Emergency Grant Program would double Collins' proposal, granting small-business owners $600 billion in much-needed liquidity. The Senate should go even beyond that, granting more than $1 trillion to save our Main Street businesses. It is far less than what we have already spent to support Wall Street. Unemployment insurance, paid sick days and paid family and medical leave. Gov. Janet Mills took an important step in waiving the one-week waiting period for unemployment benefits and by extending unemployment eligibility to all workers impacted by the virus. While Maine has passed a landmark paid sick time law, Mills has unfortunately said she will not speed up the timeline to implement the law, which will not go into effect until January 2021. At the federal level, Collins' vote for a giant paid sick leave loophole for companies with more than 500 employees, means that relief for many workers remains out of reach. Without policies like paid sick leave, workers will feel compelled to come into work sick, a dangerous proposal in the midst of a pandemic. A moratorium on all evictions, foreclosures and utility shut-offs. Maine has already taken the admirable step of halting all utility disconnections until further notice. It should also restore service to all households that now have their utilities shut off and there should be a federal moratorium on utility shut-offs until the pandemic has passed. Many housing activists are rightly calling for a national moratorium on evictions and foreclosures. That should also extend to small-business owners, who have enough to worry about without being evicted or losing their business during this crisis. Affordable, accessible health care. Many small-business owners are unable to afford health insurance coverage for themselves and their employees. Our businesses and our society are only as healthy as the least healthy person in them. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has released an emergency response to COVID-19 that, among other things, would empower Medicare to cover all medical care during this crisis, a cost that most small-business owners cannot take on themselves. How we support our small businesses during these coming weeks and months will impact our economy and our communities for decades to come. The Walmarts and Amazons of the world are going to be fine, but if we don't do enough to support small businesses during this unprecedented pandemic, very few Main Street businesses will be left when this is over. Let our elected officials know that we need to stop treating small businesses like tonsils or an appendix and treat them like what they really are — the backbone of America. Adam Zuckerman is the director of the Maine Small Business Coalition.
 |
| You are subscribed to email updates from "mens clothing" - Google News. To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, United States | |
0 Comments