Category Archives: Business news

Java Mama in Folsom Closing Shop

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Photo by Thomas Hawk
Photo by Thomas Hawk

Java Mama Folsom, a coffee shop which also has play areas for children, is closing down in February. The store opened in January 2014 confirmed the decision on its Facebook page. Java Mama’s last day of business will be on February 26.

Owner Rachel Cabalse explained on Facebook that she has to close in the face of an increase in her rent.

“I have worked harder and longer hours as an attempt towards making Java Mama profitable, or quite honestly just merely staying in business. With my savings being just enough to cover a tank of gas, I have to admit that what I’m doing isn’t working,” she said.

Java Mama utilizes 1,750 square feet of space in the Broadstone Marketplace in Folsom. Within that space is a coffee shop with play areas for children, but the store is designed to be more than just a child-friendly coffee shop.

There are other Java Mama shops, although the store is not a franchise. Owners purchase licensing rights to the name and business plan. There was another Java Mama shop in San Diego when the Folsom branch opened, but it closed. According to the Java Mama web-site there are still stores operating in Baton Rouge, Louisiana; and Fort Wayne, Indiana. There is a third shop in planning in Washington, DC.

Rates Rising at USPS

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Photo courtesy Chase Elliott Clark

As soon as January 17 United States Postal Service customers can expect to see price hikes for at least two services: Priority Mail service and Priority Mail Express.

Small businesses will be the most effected by the 9.8 percent rise which covers commercial packages. The USPS joins other popular delivery services such as FedEx and UPS in raising prices. Last month those private companies raised their rates by 4.9 percent.

The faster Priority Mail Express will go up in price by an average of 14.4 percent. First class stamps will remain at the current 49 cents each. The USPS said that the changes in pricing is essential to keep the agency competitive.

“Unlike other shipping companies, the Postal Service is not implementing any new dimensional weight charges with this pricing proposal, continuing its commitment to deliver an excellent value for customers,” Katina Fields, a spokesperson for USPS.

“The Postal Service adjusts its shipping prices annually just like other shipping companies,” added Fields. “Unlike other shippers, the Postal Service doesn’t add surcharges for fuel, residential delivery or Saturday delivery. The new prices represent the first price increase in more than three years for commercial Priority Mail.”

Plastic Bag Ban Goes Into Effect January 1st

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As of Friday, January 1st, shoppers will no longer be given free of charge either plastic or paper bags for their purchases. Plastic is completely banned, while customers can still purchase either paper bags or reusable plastic bags for 10 cents a pop. Sacramento is now one of over 145 counties and cities throughout California where plastic bags are illegal for free distribution.

The ban applies to pharmacies, convenience stores and groceries. It is designed to stem the flow of junky plastic bags into landfills, lining streets as trash, and polluting waterways. Consumers will have to bring their own bags shopping, or else buy bags for 10 cents each.

One consumer took the ban in stride:

“A lot of store trips are spontaneous,” said 65 year-old Bob Maurer of Natomas. He came to the store without any bags, and was forced to purchase a few to get his groceries to his car. “It means you have to keep a bag in your car all the time. But 10 cents isn’t that much. If it’s good for the environment, it’s a small price to pay.”

Get Ready for Spiced Up Downtown Sacramento

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The winner of this year’s Calling All Dreamers competition, Heather Wong, is planning on opening her specialty spices shop in downtown Sacramento early in the new year. The contest awarded a prize package worth $100,000 to the best retail business plan, presented by the Downtown Sacramento Foundation.

A location has been secured for the spice shop at 1125 11th Street. The location was the former home of a Merle Norman Cosmetics store, and is close to Chops restaurant in downtown.

The name has gone through a change from the original proposed in the contest entry. The first name it had was “Sacramento Spice Emporium.” Then it was altered to “Spice Station Sacramento.” Now the shop will go by the catchy “Allspicery.”

According to a press release from the Downtown Sacramento Foundation, the business will “be the first one-stop spice shop in Sacramento, offering a curated selection of spices, salts, teas and proprietary house-made spice blends sourced from around the world.”

Sacramento Salary Surge

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wagesThe current minimum wage in Sacramento is $12.50. However, there is a group of community organizers who are trying to further increase this $15. They are attempting to collect signatures to boost their campaign. If it goes ahead, by 2020 $15 will be the minimum wage in Sacramento, plus, following that, inflation adjustments. Further, this would give employees an hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked.

This measure still needs to qualify for the ballot, otherwise it won’t be implemented. Indeed, there have been various proposed $15 minimum wage measures that have not filled the ballot qualifications. However, just two months ago the Sacramento City Council approved increasing the minimum wage to $12.50 by 2020 so it is unclear whether the change to $15 is likely to happen.

In other wage-related news in California, at the beginning of this month, according to the UC system said that the US Department of Labor requested assistance in “fixing the university’s payroll system.” Apparently it has actually underpaid up to 40,000 employees up to $5 each week on their paycheck, a discovery that was only made when the university moved over to a new payroll system.  A Board of Regents attorney explained: “the reasons for these failures are complex. We would like to reach a suitable resolution that would provide retroactive payments to affected employees.” The total amount of underpayments is valued at $3 million.

To sum up, the California Fair Pay Act (FPA) which will go into effect January 1, 2016, gives greater protection to employees as well as increasing burdens on employers in defending against unequal pay claims.

Good News for Sacramento Economy

Business news

California’s State capital can finally kiss good-bye to the recession. Data released on Friday shows that an important milestone has been reached: all the jobs lost during the recession have been recovered. Jeff Michael, an economist at the University of the Pacific shed a sigh of relief:

“It’s about time. Sacramento has definitely had a long, slow journey out of this.”

California cities have been slowly coming back to pre-recession employment figures, but Sacramento has had the hardest time. It was the last of the Golden State’s metropolitan areas to get back to where it was before disaster struck.

Sacramento was especially hard hit due to the slow job growth in the public sector, where many citizens find employment. The truth is that Sacramento still has not fully recovered in this sector, still suffering from a net job loss since the Great Recession.

Recovery has come from outside government jobs. In November the region added 5,400 new jobs, totaling 936,900, according to the California Employment Development Department. That number is 3,000 jobs more than the area’s pre-recession high back in June 2007.

 

Sacramento Republic Endorsing Soccer for Homeless

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Sac Republic huddle prior to the second half of a friendly match against Atlas of Mexico. Photo by Splitfire1000
Sac Republic huddle prior to the second half of a friendly match against Atlas of Mexico. Photo by Splitfire1000

President of Sacramento Republic FC Warren Smith announced that his company will be supporting a soccer team created to help the homeless population of Sacramento. The partnership is with a new group known as Street Soccer USA Sacramento. This group hopes to use the popular game as a way to teach homeless adults and youth at-risk important life skills.

The group is also working with Loaves and Fishes, and other similar organizations to make sure that those involved in the team are receiving the social services they are entitled to and that is available to them.

“The group does incredible work, around the country and world, using the beautiful game to hit social weaknesses in communities,” Smith said. “It’s a great way to use the sport to help the community. I couldn’t be happier to partner with them.”

The group’s founder, Lawrence Cann, said that Street Soccer USA Sacramento is just one part of a national organization which sponsors 16 programs throughout the country. San Francisco also has a branch. The Sacramento branch has been developing over the past five years informally, organizing soccer games for homeless people in the state’s capital. The teams train each year for a national tournament.

The philosophy of the group is to get the homeless to socialize more and think about values such as loyalty and responsibility, said executive director Lisa Wrightsman. She stated that while the participants are having fun playing the game of soccer, they are also learning about eight “core concepts” or life skills.

“One core skill is showing up,” Wrightsman said. “That means being there on time, and being mentally prepared to communicate and play. We ask (our players) what that skill might look like outside of soccer? It might mean showing up to a job, or to school, to an AA meeting or to counseling.”

Pushkin’s Bakery Expanding to New Location

Business news

Located at 1820 29th Street in Sacramento, Pushkin’s Bakery is apparently bursting at the seams, and is planning to open a new store to accommodate its growth.

Pushkin’s opened in 2013 in its present site. The new site, which is under construction, is located at 1813 Capitol Avenue, and will not replace, but rather will add to the old Pushkin’s. The new site is in the Young Clifford project, which will be comprised of four condos perched above Pushkin’s retail space.

The new spot is over four times the size of the cozy old location, with 2,900 square feet to fill with their delectable baked goods, in addition to opening a café which will serve breakfast, lunch, and eventually dinner, too. Owners Danny and Olga Turner own the enterprise, which specializes in gluten, dairy and wheat free products. The old store will most likely be re-branded, Turner says, once the new store is underway. He is considering such alternatives as a vegan doughnut store of a sandwich shop.

Pushkin’s announced their upcoming move with the following video:

Sacramento Interactive Obesity Map Can Help Improve Citizens Health

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Using data from the US Census Bureau, American Community Survey, the US Environmental Protection Agency, and the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, RTI International created and interactive map showing the risk of obesity in different neighborhoods in Sacramento.
The map shows that Sacramento actually has a smaller number of neighborhoods with high obesity rates compared to other cities in California.

However, the results could be inaccurate since they are not a result of information gleaned from real individual residents. Rather, the researchers relied on statistics for income, ethnicity, age and household size to create “virtual households.” In other words, the map really a compilation of “educated guesses” about obesity risk in different Sacramento neighborhoods.

“It’s not that everybody in those areas are obese,” said Bill Wheaton, director of RTI’s Geospatial Science and Technology Program. “It’s more risk-based.”

Wheaton is hoping that the map can aid health workers to discover the places where the risk for obesity might be greater. The hope is that then policymakers will respond with public interventions such as building more parks, not allowing so many fast food restaurants into the area, and encouraging more community health programming in those higher risk neighborhoods.

Major League Soccer Stadium Proposed for Sacramento

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This coming Tuesday the Sacramento City Council has on its agenda a term sheet outlining the construction of a $180 million soccer stadium in the downtown rail-yard.

The term sheet does not call for any additional funding for the stadium other than the $46 million already spent or earmarked for general infrastructure improvements of the rail-yard.

The term sheet outlines some of the details of the project. Sac Soccer and Entertainment Holdings, according to the term sheet, will be totally responsible for the costs of the stadium. They will build as many as 6,500 parking spaces in garages close to the proposed stadium. In addition, depending on how the stadium parking will be organized the city could have the opportunity to receive as much as half of all future parking revenues in other lots in the vicinity.

The proposed stadium will have 25,000 seats, 3100 of which will be premium and 500 for standing room only. The rest will be general seating. The stadium will also be used for other sporting events aside from soccer, as well as concerts and other “large-scale” events. The term sheet outlines that the city would have use of the stadium as many as four times each year for city-centered events.

The term sheet also describes that the project will have to go through a usual environmental impact review.

Sac Soccer and Entertainment Holdings, which owns the Sacramento Republic FC soccer club, is listed as the developer of the stadium. They will eventually create a separate entity which will operate the stadium.