Sport Savings

5 days ago

ATHENS, Greece — Easter time in Greece is usually a very profitable time of year when shops in central Athens line their windows with brightly-colored wrappings for Easter candles and chocolate eggs. But this year has been one of gloom, with rows of shuttered shops and “for rent” signs in the recession-hit capital.

There are still Easter eggs and candles for sale, offering a brief respite for Greek shoppers and merchants alike.

But nearly a year after Greece was rescued from bankruptcy by a EUR110 billion ($160 billion) international bailout, however, its businesses are reeling from stringent austerity measures imposed as a means to pull the economy out of its debt hole.

In a country where the vast majority of businesses are small and medium-sized ones employing less than 50 people, enterprises have been shutting down at an alarming rate. Last year saw 65,000 small and medium-sized enterprises throw in the towel and shut down, said Vassilis Korkidis, president of the National Confederation of Hellenic Commerce.

Christina Karyda, a 45-year-old shop owner, fears her gift shop might soon join them.

“There is no future. There is no present, how can there be a future?” she says, gift-wrapping a decorated candle used for the all-important midnight liturgy before Easter Sunday. “We’re already in the red. We’re just going to be increasing the amount of our debt.”

Karyda has run her shop in the residential neighbourhood of Kypseli since 1988. But with austerity biting, the appetite for trinkets and decorative toys is falling fast as customers concentrate on spending for more essential items. She’s giving it until the end of the year, she said. “And then, it’s over. I’ll do another job.”

The austerity package was essential to reform the economy of a country whose finances had gone off the rails after years of overspending and over-borrowing. But the flip side has been to slash Greeks’ disposable income, which in turn has contributed to the recession.

For retail stores across the country, from butchers to bakers, chocolate shops and candle-makers to shoe shops, Easter — the most important religious holiday in the Greek Orthodox calendar — is usually a good time of year. There are gifts of shoes, clothes and even toys to be bought for godchildren, meals of whole roasted lambs on the spit to be prepared for Easter Sunday, friends and family to treat.

The government issued data this week showing that the traditional Easter meal — featuring the all-important lamb or kid goat — would cost 4.43 per cent less than last year. Promising news — but many shop owners say people just aren’t spending as much as they usually do during the holidays.

“Consumption has fallen significantly because although people are in the mood to buy, they don’t have money,” said Themis Matsoukas, who owns a series of shops specializing in nuts, chocolates and traditional sweets just off the capital city’s main Syntagma Square. “Their wallets can cope with only the bare necessities.”

The public sector is Greece’s largest employer, so measures that included public sector wage cuts have had a knock-on effect on consumer spending. Businesses in central Athens have also been severely hurt by repeated road closures for frequent demonstrations — and unions have called for yet another general strike on May 11.

Some fear the prospects for the rest of the year look bleak.

“For 2011, we are afraid that more enterprises are going to stop their activities since there is no consumption,” said Korkidis, the head of the commerce confederation. “Consumption is in a state of freefall right now.”

Data from the first three months of the year show a drop of about 25-30 per cent in consumption, on top of a 25 per cent drop in 2010, Korkidis noted.

Many small and medium-sized businesses “have no reason to exist, actually they have no customers any more,” he said, noting that many were struggling to pay increased VAT levels and social security contributions for their employees.

Korkidis estimated things would get worse before they get better.

“I don’t think we have reached the bottom of the barrel yet,” he said. “I think 2011 is going to be the most difficult year for all of us.”

Copyright © 2011 The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

article source

Tags: Shops by Admin
Comments Off

God Bless Ozzy Osbourne, a documentary about the life and times of the Prince of Darkness, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival this Sunday.

What could have been a glossy, fawning tribute to the most visible face in heavy metal music history–especially considering it was co-produced by his son, Jack–actually turned out to be a remarkably evenhanded look at Ozzys monumental musical influence as well as his less exemplary life as an addict and often-absent father.

The rock doc starts with Osbournes poor childhood in the cramped quarters of inner-city Birmingham, England, and goes up to his long-sought sobriety following the end of the water-cooler fodder reality series The Osbournes.

In Ozzys own words, “nothing really happened” in his life until he first heard the Beatles. “It was like someone had turned the world on to me,” said the Ozzman regarding his first exposure to “She Loves You.” “I knew I was going to be a rock star the rest of my life.” (Speaking of Beatles, Sir Paul is one of the numerous interviewees paying tribute to Ozzys impact).

After countless odd jobs and a six-week prison detour for minor burglary, Ozzy auditioned to be singer in a band that included Geezer Butler, Tony Iommi, and Bill Ward. Although they initially worried he was too much of a class clown, his unique vocal timbre–and the fact he owned some vital stage equipment–soon changed their minds and the lineup that would become Black Sabbath was solidified.

Butler, Iommi and Ward all appear as candid talking heads, narrating an interesting parade of tidbits for fans of the music, (Iommi suggested they move toward a darker sound after realizing scary movies didn’t yet have a rock music counterpart), as well as those interested in sordid tales (Butler says the band would have cereal boxes of cocaine delivered to them in the studio while recording Black Sabbath Vol. 4, which not coincidentally contains the track “Snowblind.”)

The movie skips ahead to Never Say Die!–which Ozzy frankly calls “the worst album I’ve ever been involved in”–to address his firing from Sabbath and his career resurrection in the form of the astonishingly fast-fingered guitarist Randy Rhoads, his lead guitarist, co-writer and best mate until a plane crash claimed Rhoads life in 1982 at 25 years old.

While the movie does refrain from delving into certain parts of Ozzy’s life as much as common-sense curiosity would seem to dictate (the fact that wife/manager Sharon stayed with him in spite of drunken beatings and an attempted strangulation cries out for explanation), the film deserves lauds for casting a skeptical eye on Ozzy’s substance-fueled years of partying.

For instance, when recounting Ozzy’s infamous ’80s tour with Mötley Crüe, Tommy Lee offers up some hearty laughs but tempers his “boys will be boys” nostalgia by acknowledging Ozzy took his life to such extremes that he wasn’t the kind of person you actually wanted to spend too much time with (youll just have to see the movie to learn why).

Furthermore, interviews with his five children–including non-public figure offspring Louis and Jessica by his first wife, Thelma–portray him as an absentee father even when he was physically present due to his mind-numbing abuse of pills, cocaine and liquor.

Somewhat surprisingly, it’s daughter Kelly who actually seems to harbor the freshest wounds: Even though his first two children were utterly neglected by their father (the cameras reveal he doesn’t know the year of Jessica’s birth), they both seem to have come to terms with their virtual abandonment. Kelly, however, still seemed very emotional when recalling her father using drugs to escape when Sharon was diagnosed with cancer during the filming of The Osbournes.

According to Sharon, it was actually Jack who brought Ozzy into his current five-year-and-counting sobriety spree. Both Jack and Kelly became addicted to various substances in their teenage years (all while MTV’s cameras rolled), and Sharon believes it was Jack’s move toward sobriety that “shamed” Ozzy into finally besting his demons.

Overall, God Bless Ozzy Osbourne may not answer the question “What makes Ozzy act so Ozzy-like?”, but it’s hardly a fluffy tribute. This documentary succeeds in offering a balanced portrait of a man who made many mistakes over the course of his addiction-riddled life and also happens to be one of the most influential hard rock singers ever. Whether you’re a fan of Ozzy the singer, the mumbling MTV celebrity or the near-mythical Prince of Darkness, God Bless Ozzy Osbourne is a film well-worth checking out.

Some interesting bits of trivia from the film:

Ozzy’s father Jack Osbourne designed and produced the iconic Black Sabbath crosses at his factory for his sons band.

Regarding the infamous incident of biting the head off of a dove, Ozzy said, “It was not a publicity stunt: I was just out of my mind.”

Black Sabbath’s self-titled debut was recorded in twelve hours for “about ten bucks.”

Ozzy didn’t get his driver’s license until he went sober in the mid ’00s.

The first gold record he ever got was inscribed to “Ossie Osbourne.”

Read more on EW.com:
Liam Gallagher criticizes statue of Michael Jackson (and height of Justin Bieber)
Elton John premieres Cameron Crowe-directed music doc starring himself and Leon Russell, plays the hits at Tribeca Film Festival
Guitarist KK Downing quits Judas Priest after 40 years

article source

Tags: Art by Admin
Comments Off

Michael P. Weinstein is director of the PSEG Institute for Sustainability Studies at Montclair State University.

WE LIVE in the Age of Humans, or Anthropocene, as it has come to be called, and mankind has become a true force of nature shaping the global landscape.

And as the world has changed due to human activities, decision makers and the scientific community have increasingly recognized that we are not only failing to resolve the persistent sustainability problems we face, but are in fact causing them.

Few issues have become as relevant or pressing in our human-dominated world as reconciling human use of the Earths natural resources with the planets ability to provide them at sustainable levels. Because global patterns of little or no systemic change are often followed by precipitous declines, such as the rapid advance and retreat of ice sheets over the past 100,000 years, mankinds very survival may be at stake.

Biologist John Peterson Myers, CEO of Environmental Health Science – a Virginia-based journalism service – stated it succinctly: How much of the Earths ecological integrity can we disrupt before we pass a threshold in the loss of life support services?

The often negative interactions observed between human activities and our life-support systems are likely to persist well into the future. Yet these very interactions can offer the fabric for rigorous analysis and scientific advancement in understanding the threats to, and opportunities for, sustainable development. In Common Cause, John Gardiner noted that confronting the challenge of the sustainability transition is a series of opportunities disguised as insoluble problems.

But tradeoffs, sacrifices and compromises will be needed along the way and will require innovative new approaches to conflict management and consensus building. Also necessary for a successful transition to sustainability are critical advances in new knowledge and mankinds social and technological capacity to turn that knowledge into action. This is the essence of the nascent field of sustainability science that seeks to maintain human-environment interactions on sustainable trajectories.

Ecology and economy need to be brought into balance for the well-being of mankind and the life-support systems that contribute to our quality of life. Moreover, the sustainability transition must consider the dynamics of evolution and the interplay of social, economic and natural systems, ultimately integrated across disciplines. This integration goes beyond individual areas of study – population, economy, water, food, energy and climate – to identifying common threads and drivers of systemic change.

Sustainability science seeks real-world solutions to sustainability issues and aims to break down artificial and outdated disciplinary gaps between the natural and social sciences through the creation of new knowledge and its practical application to decision making.

New Jersey institutions of higher education have taken up the challenge to play a transformative role in cross-disciplinary research and education by addressing the relevant sustainability issues of our time. New university curricula are being developed underpinned by sustainability science to better understand multiple interactive stresses on the coupled human-natural environment.

The urban setting of the New York-New Jersey metropolitan area in the most densely populated state in the nation presents unique opportunities to grow the sustainability science agenda. By the middle of this century, 80 percent of the worlds population will live in cities, and with it will come new challenges in managing urban ecosystems that consume far more energy than they produce.

From a cross-disciplinary perspective, questions posed by scientists working on the Baltimore Ecosystem Study, a long-term National Science Foundation program, illustrate the need to build sustainability science into ecosystem management:

bull; How do the spatial structures of socioeconomic, ecological and physical features of an urban area relate to one another and change with time?

bull; What are the flows of energy, matter, human-built capital and social capital in an urban system?

bull; How do they relate to one another, and how do they change over the long term?

bull; How can people develop and use an understanding of the metropolis as an ecological system to improve the quality of their environment and to reduce pollution to downstream air and watersheds?

Education and community outreach at all levels will also be keys, promoting learning that recognizes the transition to sustainability. A new generation of students trained in sustainability science will design future products and processes that will result in less environmental harm. This concept is already being expressed in todays green wave: new products, infrastructure, energy use and workforce training.

A key element of the new curriculum is development of thinking in terms of related systems. Our present models are framed by short-term horizons, narrow system boundaries and poor understanding of the great complexity of the landscapes we live in.

In his keynote address at Montclair State Universitys recent International Symposium on Sustainability Science, John Sterman of MIT noted Systems dynamics help us expand the boundaries of our mental models amp; help people see themselves as part of a larger system, so that we become aware of and take responsibility for the feedback created by our decisions amp; that shape the world in ways large and small, desired and undesired.

It is simply no longer practical to ignore the interactions between managed and natural systems. New Jerseys academic institutions are up to the task.

article source

Tags: Interactions by Admin
Comments Off

• Bigger text

• Smaller text

• E-mail

• Print

• Text

• Share

Cities must be able to opt out of marijuana shops

A month ago, the state Senate approved a bill with sensible rules for the prescribing and distribution of medical marijuana. Not perfect, but you could tell the senators were trying.

article source

Tags: Shops by Admin
Comments Off

Police are investigating the burglary and ransacking of two borough businesses near the intersection of Roosevelt Avenue and Main Street.

Police said a cleaning crew arrived to service Cest La Vie Salon on the night of April 15 and discovered that a door had been pried open. Inside, a jewelry display case had been shattered and its contents taken.

The owner of the salon was called to the scene and confirmed that cash, jewelry and leather goods had been stolen, police said. The stolen property is valued at an estimated $4,700.

While investigators surveyed the salon, officers discovered that nearby Sally Lunns Tea Room also had been forcibly entered and ransacked. The owner was unable to say if anything was taken, police said.

Spokesman Kevin OShea said police believe the burglaries happened at the same time.

The Morris County Sheriffs Office Investigation Service responded to both scenes to process the evidence.

There are no suspects. Borough police ask anyone with information to call 973-635-8000.

article source

Tags: Shops by Admin
Comments Off

Hiroshi Miura and a dozen other taxi drivers dressed in crisp blue shirts were shooting the breeze in front of the quiet Tokyo Bay Hotel at dusk Saturday. They had one thing on their minds: X Day.

Thats the day Disney is going to reopen, said Miura, leaning against a buddys black cab and lamenting how he has lost at least two-thirds of his fares since Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo Disney Sea shut down after Japans March 11 earthquake and tsunami. Theyre going to post a notice five days before X Day on their website announcing what day they are starting operations. Were all waiting.

Its not just taxi drivers who have been suffering without the 70,000 customers that the Disney resorts in Japan attract each day on average. Many nearby hotels, restaurants and shopping centers sustained only minor damage in the quake but have seen a major drop-off in business, vividly illustrating the economic ripple effects of the disaster. The two Tokyo Disney properties are among the most popular theme parks in the world, attracting more than 25.3 million visitors in the 12 months that ended March 31.

The quake crumbled some Disney parking lots, but otherwise the facilities escaped largely unscathed. Yet the resorts operator is still facing multiple issues as it considers when to throw open the gates again, including ongoing power shortages linked to the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident and an expected decline in visitors from the disaster zone and overseas.

Attendance may also be curtailed by the phenomenon of jishuku, or self-restraint, as some Japanese feel its unseemly to overtly partake in leisure activities at this time of national crisis.

A gloomy outlook for Japans overall economy after the quake, tsunami and nuclear accident may also make potential Disney visitors think twice about shelling out for tickets.

Oriental Land Co., which owns and operates the parks under license from Walt Disney Co., did not respond to a request for comment. Disney representatives declined to comment. But an analyst at Morgan Stanley in Tokyo who follows Oriental Land said in a recent report that the parks will probably reopen this month during the daytime only and will probably have to discount admission prices because of the shorter hours. Ticket prices were supposed to rise to 6,200 yen ($74) for an adult starting April 23.

Each day the parks are closed costs Oriental Land 500 million yen (about $5.9 million) in operating profit, Morgan Stanleys Naoshi Nema estimated, and the stock has lost about a quarter of its value since March 11.

The closures precise effect on the bottom line of Disney is a bit murky because neither the Burbank entertainment giant nor Oriental Land would comment on details of the licensing agreement. However, analysts at the stock analysis website Trefis estimate that Oriental Land remits about 7.5% of its theme park revenue to Disney, or about $230 million based on figures from fiscal 2009. Walt Disney Co. saw overall theme park operating income fall to about $1.32 billion last year from $1.89 billion in 2008.

Before the earthquake, the Tokyo Disney properties had been rebounding from a downturn in attendance in 2009, according to data from the Themed Entertainment Assn. Nema expects attendance in the 12 months that started April 1 to fall 10% from the 25.3 million visitors in the previous fiscal year.

The effect on Disneys bottom-line probably would be negligible, said Matthew Harrigan, a media analyst with Wunderlich Securities.

Its basically a royalty deal, Harrigan said. Its barely noticeable in the earnings.

Of greater potential financial significance to Disney is the long-awaited Shanghai park, which is expected to break ground Friday. It would be Disneys first park in mainland China.

The Mainichi newspaper reported last week that Tokyo Disney officials were considering placing large gas-powered generators within the parks in preparation for prolonged blackouts; the resorts use 570,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity daily, the Daily Yomiuri newspaper said. Thats enough energy to power nearly 1,000 California homes for a month, according to data from the US Energy Information Administration.

In a report Monday, Deutsche Bank analysts Yu Sato and Satoru Kikuchi said an electricity shortage is the biggest problem for the parks and that installing generators is not a realistic near-term solution.

Even if the parks shorten operating hours or open fewer days, it would be good news for Hideo Serizawa, assistant general manager of the 428-room Tokyo Bay Maihama Hotel, which sits on the perimeter of the park.

The hotel has an average occupancy rate of 85%, Serizawa said, and late March is a particularly busy time because schools are on spring break; rooms start at about $300 (25,000 yen) a night. After the quake, though, the hotel received a slew of cancellations and had to contend with power blackouts, making it impossible to accept bookings even if there were customers.

There was no problem here in our facilities, Serizawa said. But we couldnt have customers round-the-clock.

After consulting with officials in nearby Urayasu city, where municipal water supplies were out of commission, the hotel started offering local residents in desperate need of a bath access to its spa for $6 (500 yen); 800 people came on the first day. For those who wanted to bathe in more privacy, the hotel also rented rooms in three-hour blocks for $46 (4,600 yen) and came up with a special $8 (700 yen) menu.

At the nearby Hilton Tokyo Bay, 100 of the 809 rooms are now occupied, mostly by earthquake or tsunami victims who are paying one-fifth the normal rate, spokesperson Mari Ikeda said. Part of the staff is on duty, but most of the housekeepers have been sent home because theres little work to do.

At the 140-store Ikspiari mall near the entrance to the Disney parks, business resumed with shorter hours March 28 after a hiatus of more than two weeks. Although the shopping center was moderately busy over the weekend, spokeswoman Hiroko Kanno said normally a third of the customers are Disney visitors. If the park remains closed or shortens its hours, that could lead to drops in profits for merchants or layoffs for some of the 3,000 people who work at the mall.

So far, the store operators have not asked for a reduction in rent, she said.

Among the shoppers Saturday were Naoko Hikita and Mayumi Imada, friends in their 30s who live on opposite sides of Tokyo and decided Ikspiari would be a convenient rendezvous point.

Some people say we shouldnt shop because its not appropriate at this time, said Hikita, who purchased some accessories. But I think its good. It will help the local economy.

The good news for the parks operator and the nearby businesses is that Disney has legions of die-hard fans in Japan like Kyoko and Sachiko Tabata. The sisters live in western Tokyo and came to the park over the weekend just to ride the train that runs along the perimeter and see if there were any signs of life inside.

I was supposed to come on March 12, the day after the earthquake, Kyoko said. I heard they were already practicing for the special Easter event, so we thought maybe we could catch a glimpse.

julie.makinen@latimes.com

Special correspondent Kenji Hall in Tokyo and Times staff writer Dawn C. Chmielewski in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

article source

Tags: Leisure Activities by Admin
Comments Off

Easter means eggs and nothing is guaranteed to cause as much excitement among children (and many adults!) as a good old fashioned chocolate blow-out on Easter Sunday.

As tempting as many of the special offers are on Easter eggs this year, theres also money to be saved by making your own. If you have the time and the energy, it can be fun doing the job yourself.

1 Moulds

The first step is a visit your local treasure trove of a shop where you find all kinds of cooking and baking equipment, to purchase a a set of Easter-egg moulds equivalent to a small or medium size.

Some people will already have them, bringing down the cost, and dont forget that once you have them its a one-off cost.

In my case it was dropping into Kitchen Complements in Grantham Street, Dublin, where I bought two, for euro;3.25 each.

You could just as easily use one, but it would take twice the time to make your confections.

2 The chocolate

Deciding what kind of chocolate to use was much more of a head-scratcher.

Cheaper cooking chocolate (2 x 500g bars of Scotbar or Homecook for less than euro;4) produced 10 eggs for the price of two purchased ones at just 40c per egg.

With the price of the smallest shop egg at around euro;1.50, thats a potential saving of euro;11.

At the other end of the scale, one could use expensive posh chocolate with masses of cocoa in it, but I wasnt sure my four-year old would like it.

I could also have plumped for Belgian milk chocolate buttons from Kitchen Complements (54% cocoa solids), specially made to be suitable for moulding and pouring. Not bad at euro;2.95 for 200g.

Two 230g bars of Cadburys Dairy Milk (made in Ireland using FairTrade cocoa) were on sale for an offer price of euro;3.50 from Superquinn.

3 Making them

Making the eggs was simple enough, if a little messy. The trick, it seems, is not to overheat the chocolate when melting it.

Once done, its a case of just filling the moulds, sticking it in the fridge to set and it tastes great.

Unlike the Scotbar eggs (five for just euro;2 or 40c each) we managed to make three small/medium-sized eggs of reasonable thickness for a total of euro;3.50 — or about euro;1.16 each.

A good bit cheaper than the Cadburys/Mars small (160-180g) eggs for euro;1.50 each in Tesco, and the feel-good factor is priceless: having fun with your kids, adding any decoration you like, chocolatey fingers and, of course, the satisfaction of having made it yourself.

4 Buy your own

Of course, if this is all too much effort, you could buy your own.

A survey by UK grocery shopping website mySupermarket revealed that prices there were up by an average of 21% compared to last year — and as much as 141% in one case. Manufacturers and retailers blamed the increases on the rising costs of cocoa, among other things.

But while the basic price of confectionary may have risen, it doesnt appear to have affected prices in the Irish Easter egg market.

In fact, the main supermarkets, including Superquinn, Tesco, Supervalu and Dunnes Stores, have been waging something of a price war on these seasonal chocolate items.

For instance, in Tesco, a small Maltesers egg (158g) costs euro;1.50 — down from euro;3.29. In Superquinn, that same egg is euro;1.99, down from euro;3.99.

Dunnes has large Cadbury eggs (around 300g) cut from euro;10 to euro;5, while Supervalu is offering three Cadburys/Nestle medium eggs (177-187g) for just euro;5.

Even the upmarket brands are getting the discount treatment, although not by quite as much as the popular or cheaper ones.

Lily OBriens Crispy Hearts egg (370g) is being sold for euro;12 in Dunnes, down from euro;15, while Tesco is offering two Green and Blacks Milk eggs (180g) for euro;10 — they cost euro;7.99 each.

You are also likely to find similar deals in the convenience store chains too, including Centra, Spar, and Mace.

5 Finding deals

The grocery trade is expecting extra sales this year because of Easter falling so late. Clearly, the best advice to pay as little as possible for your easter eggs is to look for the special deals and multi-buys.

But for some consumers, this particular price war may smell a little of the strategy of pricing them high to begin with, then slashing them in the last few weeks before Easter in order to make them seem like incredible value.

Indeed, several posters on online discussion forum Boards.ie angrily reported buying their easter eggs early in March at full price at their local supermarkets, only to discover that the same eggs had halved in price weeks later.

Ruddy agrees that the easter egg market has become very offer-centric.

Its a market which became so competitive and so price-focused, that many small guys stopped stocking a large range of eggs because consumers were only buying them on promotion in the big retailers.

As a result, Ruddy says easter eggs have now almost become what the retail trade calls a KVI (known value item) — an item that everyone knows the price of, such as milk or bread, and can easily compare prices.

Shoppers will now know what a standard egg costs, or what it costs when its on promotion, and will reject it at the high price and only buy at the low or promotional price.

- John Cradden

Irish Independent

article source

Tags: Fun by Admin
Comments Off

To His Royal Highness Prince William of Wales, KG, and Her Royal Hotness, Miss Catherine Middleton:

Please let me say that we Americans have long felt a rather close and special kinship with you English, and thats why I had to write. Were almost cousins, arent we?

And so, I must warn you of the impending disaster with this so-called royal wedding of yours.

Royal wedding? Please.

News reports say youre probably not even serving a sit-down reception meal, so it sure doesnt sound too royal to me. Whats worse, Im hearing that youre expected to serve your guests a chintzy menu:

article source

Tags: News Reports by Admin
Comments Off

The Colorado Legislature on Tuesday killed off the last of this years bills that proposed to change the way full-strength beer is sold in Colorado. These bills have been a solution in search of a problem, and we commend the Legislature for once again leaving well enough alone

Senate Bill 194 would have allowed full-strength beer to be sold in convenience stores, but the bill sponsor effectively withdrew the measure Tuesday. Another bill that would have allowed such sales in both convenience and grocery stores was voted down in the House earlier this month.

Current law restricts sale of full-strength beer to liquor stores, which also can sell wine and spirits. Convenience and grocery stores can sell only so-called 3.2 beer, which has a lower alcohol content.

As weve said previously, we understand the motivation of the grocery and convenience stores to sell full-strength beer. It is a product they sell in most other states and represents a good revenue source.

But Colorados current law is working fine for both small businesses and consumers. Because no one can own more than one liquor license, the law has created thousands of small businesses across the state.

The law also has spurred the growth of the craft brewing industry in Colorado, because the smaller brewers have been able to get prominent shelf space in liquor stores that probably wouldnt be available in convenience and grocery stores.

The current system of independent retailers has fostered a profitable structure for brewers and a diverse, beneficial market for beer lovers, said John Carlson, head of the Colorado Brewers Guild. If altered to allow chain stores to sell full-strength beer, those independent liquor stores that carry a diverse array of Colorado craft beer will be put out of business, reducing the publics access to craft brewers products.

Grocery and convenience store companies have tried for four years to change Colorado beer law, without success. Its clear the Legislature isnt interested in changing the law – a feeling we share.

It would be nice if we could go a few years without addressing beer law, but we suspect thats not likely to happen.

article source

Tags: Shops by Admin
Comments Off

As from the coming weeks the attention of those referred to as ?Small States of Europe? will be focused on the 14th edition of the Games of Small States of Europe.

It will be Liechtenstein again to organise these Games following the experience the country went through in 1999.

For those who are not familiar with such Games, one is to recall that at some of the European Olympic Committee meetings, the representatives of the small states decades ago had suggested the idea of organising, between them, multidisciplinary sporting games. The most important factor, however, is that European countries with a population of less than one million inhabitants may participate, if they have an autonomous Olympic committee and are members of the International Olympic Committee.

The idea of these Games took shape at the Olympic Congress held in Baden-Baden in 1981, at which the Olympic committees of the eight small states met for the first time to exchange impressions and work out ways to organise games especially designed for the size of their states.

The decision was taken during the Los Angeles Olympic Games in 1984 and the statutes and technical regulations were drawn up. These Games are held ? with little exceptions ? in accordance with the rules and regulations of the international federations and the Olympic Charter and are acknowledged by the European Olympic Committee.

All of the eight countries have already once organised the Games as from 2001 the second circle has been started. The GSSE take place every two years either end of May or beginning of June. 

On 1 June 2009, the Executive Committee of the Games of Small States of Europe has decided to include Montenegro as ninth member country.

To date the Games were organised by the following countries: 1985 San Marino, 1987 Monaco, 1989 Cyprus, 1991 Andorra, 1993 MALTA, 1995 Luxembourg, 1997 Iceland, 1999 Liechtenstein, 2001 San Marino, 2003 MALTA, 2005 Andorra, 2007 Monaco, 2009 Cyprus.

In addition to individual sporting activities, Liechtenstein offers a wide range of opportunities to take advantage of clubs in many different types of sports. 15,000 people in Liechtenstein are members of a sports association.

This corresponds to 45% of the population. One in 240 people in Liechtenstein is president of a sports association. The development of sport in Liechtenstein is a result of the Sports Act has been in force in Liechtenstein since 2000. This law aims at promoting sports in the interest of the development of the young, of public health, of leisure activities and physical fitness.

Besides organising the Games of Small States of Europe in 1999, Liechtenstein has brought forth a number of internationally successful elite athletes.

Liechtenstein has won a total of 11 Olympic medals, all in Alpine skiing.

World Championship medals were won in Alpine skiing, in Model Aircraft Flying (combustion engines3A), in Kickboxing, Cycling and Winter triathlon.

The Liechtenstein Olympic Sports Association (LOSV) has affiliated to it of 42 national sports associations and 128 sport clubs.

As an umbrella Organisation of associations and clubs, the LOSV has direct responsibilty for all issues connected with sports. The LOSV supports and advises the organisations in their activities and developments in favour of sports, provided that these meet the principles and standards in ethics. The LOSV is the national olympic committee (NOC) and responsible for the representation at Olympic Games and therefore also at the Games of the Small States of Europe.

The mentor for sports organisation in Liechtenstein remains Baron Eduard von Falz-Fein a ?sports diplomat? born in 1912 and who established and cultivated many diverse international relationships for Liechtenstein sports.

He rendered particularly outstanding services for the Olympic movement in Liechtenstein. Using his professional and family ties to the International Olympic Committee (IOC), he was the driving force when Liechtenstein, which was not a member of the IOC, participated in the Olympic Games for the first time. An Olympic Committee was founded in Liechtenstein a year before in 1935, where Baron von Falz-Fein served as Vice President.

Meeting Baron Eduard von Falz-Fein in Vaduz he stressed that : ? the results were modest the first few times Liechtenstein participated in the Olympics, believing that even a small country could achieve success through hard work and luck. Today this perseverance has proven to be correct.

The gold, silver, and bronze medals that Liechtenstein has won at the Olympics demonstrate this.? Baron von Falz-Fein has always been particularly committed to the Olympic movement and idea: ?Taking part is everything!? This is underscored in a most impressive way by the fact that he participated in 16 Olympic Games in various functions!

His second athletic passion was for cycling. As a Parisian cycling champion and acquaintance of many European sports stars, Eduard von Falz-Fein has dedicated himself to Liechtenstein cycling since 1951. In 1951 and from 1953 to 1973, he was President of the Liechtenstein Cycling Association, and he supported many cycling talents during that time. To this day, he continues to put his entire heart into his commitent to youth and cycling.

The Organising Committee of the 2011 ? 16th. Games of the Small States of Europe chose two birds as official mascots of these Games.

They are rare animals, they live in the alps and also in Liechtenstein. Eagles embody qualities like strength and liability, elegance and quickness ? values which are also important in sports. They shall be friendly identification figures of the LieGames and bring luck to athletes and the Organising Committee.

In August they have been presented to the public.

There the audience has given them the names Elfi for the female eagle (the name has been deduced from ?11? – in German ?elf?) and Alfi for the male mascot.

article source

Tags: Leisure Activities by Admin
Comments Off