Recently in Retail Category

This Hound went to the liquor emporium on Labor Day to pick up a six-pack to take to a Labor Day barbecue. What a shock! The premium brew manufactured on an island in Chicago was $8.99. Yikes! At that price, The Hound is thinking low-end brewski.

Unlike most of you, this Hound did not stock up before the big Sept. 1 price increases on liquor, wine, beer, candy, pop and toothpaste. The state increased the tax on candy 525 percent! If this was beer, we'd be in the street and at the barricades.

When are we going to learn about Illinois government, and not in poly sci class? The local lawmakers to the county to the state keep on taxing and spending, taxing and spending. It's enough to make one want to move to Wisconsin. Wait, much of our industry already has!

The Hound was dragged to the friendly hardware store on Saturday and was shocked. The Hound says shocked, to discover it's already Christmas time. Yes, the hardware store people were putting up Christmas tree displays, offering outdoor Christmas displays and giving a glimpse of what The Hound may get for Christmas. Are we jumping the gun, or what?

Perhaps The Hound is confused with the change to standard time, but didn't the retailers used to start putting up the Christmas displays around Thanksgiving and not the day after Halloween? If they're selling stuff this early, what will be the discounts come December? Maybe the economy's as bad as everybody says.

Yet, there's still Halloween stuff --- mainly candy --- to dispose of with deep discounts. Where's all the Pilgrim stuff? The cranberries? The Butterball turkeys?

Maybe we should skip Thanksgiving and go right to Christmas. No turkey, just Christmas goose. Yummo!

While many folks are seething over the California state Supreme Court's recent decision to overturn the ban on gay marriages, there's others, besides the happy same-sex couples, who have reason to celebrate --- the wedding industry.

The Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy at the UCLA School of Law estimates that same-sex weddings could generate up to $683.6 million in additional revenue for the industry over the next three years.

With the current state of the economy, the ruling looks to be particularly good news for jewelers as same-sex couples look to purchase wedding rings and wedding jewelry, according to the Platinum Guild International USA, marketing arm of the platinum jewelry industry.

Though Massachusetts also allows gay marriage, California is the only state where same-sex couples can obtain a marriage license even if they don't live there. The Williams Institute estimates that half of the state's 102,639 same-sex couples will marry by 2011, in addition to 67,500 out-of-state couples. That's a lot of wedding bands to be purchased, nuptials to be catered.

Hotels, wedding planners and vendors in California obviously stand to benefit from ceremonies from the sought-after gay demographic. Gays usually earn more than straights and have more disposable income.

With Illinois tourism generating more than $30 billion last year, a 5.8 percent increase over 2006, maybe the Legislature should investigate a similar law here. Just for the business it could bring --- not for the love.

Isn't it a little overkill that Gurnee has launched an "iShop Gurnee" campaign? Let's face it, what isn't for sale in the village?

Between the shops in and around Gurnee Mills, the Grand-Hunt corridor, the East Side and stores across Grand Avenue from Six Flags Great America (which also sells things), you can pretty much buy anything you want. And, with gas prices what they are, it makes cents to shop locally instead of say going to downtown Chicago, Old Orchard, Northbrook Court, Hawthorn Center or the outlets up in Pleasant Prairie.

Fortunately, local merchants decided to kick off the the campaign after this winter's extraordinary snow fall. What with the village's non-plowing capabilities, it might have been hard for some to get to retail shop owners' locations. Especially, if shoppers were coming from Gurnee.

The Gurnee Chamber of Commerce has started a new program, "iShopGurnee.com". Why?

When The Hound was a pup, he certainly liked his toys and when he mistreated them, his mother would remind him that he was a lucky pup because kids in China didn't have nice toys to play with. Of course not, they shipped them all here. With lead on them!