Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Thursdays on the Coast tomorrow night


DON'T MISS OUT ON ALL THE FUN AS THE VILLAGE COMES ALIVE FOR THURSDAYS ON THE COAST

The Carlsbad Village Association’s Thursdays on the Coast is a free, ongoing, self-guided Art Walk held throughout Carlsbad Village. Come to the Opening Night event the last Thursday of each month from 5:30-8:30pm

Enjoy artist receptions at Village galleries and businesses, live music, art demonstrations, restaurant’s Dinner Specials and an Objets d’Arte Silent Auction.

Self-guided walking maps will be provided at all participating venues in time for the January 28th opening night and will be available through the end of February, when Thursdays on the Coast returns with a new lineup of artists and galleries on Thursday, February 25th.

Information Hub will be located at Ivanffy-Uhler Gallery, 565 Grand Avenue, where featured Artist Nanette Newbry will be opening her new show "Image and Memory".

Enjoy Live music throughout the Village featuring: Rick and Carmine, Ukulele Society of America, Daniel Sratman, and Jeff Diamond.

Also, help support Thursdays on the Coast by taking part in our Objets D'Arte Auctions. This month we are featuring tables designed by local artists, Lori Watkins and Carol McLeod.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Carlsbad Marathon Road Closures

A number of roads will be closed in and around the Carlsbad Marathon course on Sunday, Jan. 24, from approximately 5 a.m. to 2 p.m.


Marron Road between Monroe Street and Jefferson Street

Monroe Street south of Marron Road

Jefferson Street between Marron Road and Laguna Drive

Laguna Drive between Jefferson Street and State Street

State Street between Laguna Drive and Carlsbad Boulevard

Carlsbad Boulevard between the north city limits at Buena Vista Lagoon to the south city limits at La Costa Avenue

Palomar Airport Road between Carlsbad Boulevard and El Camino Real (eastbound lanes only)

Avenida Encinas between Cannon Road and Palomar Airport Road

Poinsettia Lane between Avenida Encinas and Carlsbad Boulevard

Camino Vida Roble between Palomar Oaks and Palomar Airport Road

Palomar Oaks Road entirely

I-5 at Palomar Airport Road both northbound and southbound off-ramps and southbound on-ramp closed


The Carlsbad Police Department and volunteers will assist cars needing to get in or out of closed or partially closed areas, when safety allows. Those who need to get in or out of the race area during the event can do so on a nearby street not affected by race-day closures.


The Carlsbad Marathon begins and ends at the Westfield Plaza Camino Real shopping center. The race course runs from the mall to Carlsbad Boulevard and continues as far south as La Costa Avenue. The marathon also runs inland along Palomar Airport Road as far east as El Camino Real. The 26.2-mile marathon race starts at 6 a.m., while the half-marathon begins at 7:30 a.m.


More than 100,000 participants are expected.


Visit the event’s Web site at www.carlsbadmarathon.com for detailed route maps and additional road closure information.

Friday, January 15, 2010

The 3/50 Project - How you can save local business

The 3/50 Project!
How YOU Can Save Local Business

IE News Service, November 20, 2009 — Which three local businesses would you miss if they closed their doors? Maybe it’s that deli on the corner where you grab the best sandwiches. Perhaps it’s the video store down the street where the clerk stashes the latest release behind the counter so it will still be there when you stop after work late on Friday night. Is it the florist who already seems to know exactly what your wife will love for her birthday—and is good enough to give you a reminder call so you never forget the date?

Small business (defined as having 500 or fewer employees) are the lifeblood of the American economy, accounting for an astounding 99.7 percent of all employer firms, according to a 2007 study by the U.S. Department of Commerce. Yet locally owned independent businesses are under far more pressure than ever. Trying economic times that have consumers closing their wallets, the credit crunch, and shoppers searching for perceived bargains at large chain stores have taken a severe toll, while buyouts of corporations that are “too big to fail” largely don’t benefit the little guys.

It was that combination of factors that was weighting heavily on Cinda Baxter, a Minneapolis-based retail consultant, early in 2009. “It began with a really rotten week in March,” Baxter explains. That Monday, a friend told her to turn on Oprah. “I flipped it on and saw an hour-long program telling consumers to stop discretionary spending. As someone who knows how small business works, it was devastating. Then CBS did a piece on consumer saving and how consumers were now doing such a good job of it. The headlines were just dire and abysmal; by the end of the week, more people I knew had turned off the news than were still watching it.” A few days later, after seeing CNBC’s Erin Burnett discuss how the headlines were impacting consumer psychology on the Today Show and a later interview on Meet the Press in which Burnett said part of the problem was dire media coverage, Baxter decided to take matters into her own hands: “I am not a person who thinks the glass is half empty with holes drilled in the bottom, so three days later, I wrote a blog post.”

That post meant for only a few friends was the start of what would soon become an international movement to support locally owned businesses. Baxter’s idea was simple: if half of the employed U.S. population chose three locally owned independent businesses they would hate to lose, and then spent a combined total of $50 a month with them, it would have a major impact—generating an estimated $42.6 billion of revenue annually.

What Baxter couldn’t have envisioned was how quickly what she dubbed The 3/50 Project would take off. “I thought maybe a dozen of my friends would see the post. I came up with a flyer explaining the idea that businesses could hand out to customers, and I thought that perhaps half of that dozen would go that far,” Baxter recalls. Instead of the six she initially envisioned, “within 48 hours, I had more than 350 emails from total strangers asking, ‘This is great, what else have you got?‘” She spent a Sunday afternoon designing a website —www.the350project.net—that launched on Monday, March 30, 2009. It drew 7,600 absolute unique visitors in seven days. By early November, more than 12,800 businesses had become supporters, there were 21,600 Facebook fans, and absolute unique hits were at 203,700.

What caused the groundswell? Perhaps it’s the straightforward way Baxter presents the facts: For every $100 spent in locally owned stores, $68 remains in the local economy. In contrast, only $43 of every $100 remains local when spent in national chains, and little or no local revenue results from online purchases.

“No one has talked this through with consumers,” Baxter says. “The experts all talk in terms of macro or microeconomics—not how consumers talk to each other over the dinner table. We simply say, ‘Here’s the impact.’ It really resonates that even a small amount of spending can make a big difference.”

Another difference is that The 3/50 Project takes a realistic approach. “We’re the only buy local movement that doesn’t ask consumers to stop going to big boxes. I understand that while you can find many things in a local business, there are some items that people will continue to go to big boxes for. We just ask them to balance their spending a little better; that all or nothing mentality is what got us into this mess in the first place,” she states.

What is essential to helping small business is gaining and maintaining local support. “The 3/50 Project is definitely having an impact,” Baxter says. Facebook is filled with comments from business owners and consumers echoing Baxter’s sentiments, like these by Martha Pesta Smith, who owns Peafunk Designs in Wickford, R.I.: “As the owner of a small gift shop, I cannot thank you enough for launching this website!! BRILLIANT idea. I hope enough people follow your advice! If so, it will literally change the lives of people like myself and so many of my fellow small business owners.”

Baxter’s own email box is happily logged. “I now average 350 to 450 emails daily. I hear from business owners who are grateful to finally have a message that’s positive and a ridiculously easy way to explain it—they simply hand customers a flyer. I hear stories about long-lost customers coming back and new customers coming in. I even hear that consumers are printing out the flyers and taking them to businesses they want to support. I never would have dreamt of that.”

Baxter also never imagined the impact that post would have on her own life, as she now speaks about The 3/50 Project to audiences across the country. “I quite inadvertently created a second full-time job for myself. It has completely up-ended my personal life, which just demonstrates how obviously necessary this is,” she says.

Future plans for additional membership levels and Canadian, UK and Australian sites are in the works. “I’m also looking at corporate sponsorships that will allow us to keep growing,” she says, then adds with a laugh, “At some point, though, I just hope to get a good night’s sleep.”
Thanks to The 3/50 Project, many local business owners may be sleeping a bit more soundly as well.

CARLSBAD VILLAGE PARKING

Carlsbad Police Department to Enforce 3 hour parking

Beginning Monday, January 18, the Carlsbad Police Department will begin enforcing the 3 hour parking limit on the streets of Carlsbad Village. Enforcement will be done at random times and is meant to keep Village workers and commuters from parking in front of businesses and impeding customer's access to shops and businesses.

During the first week of enforcement, the Police department will be issuing warnings and beginning January 25, will begin issuing tickets. It is still unknown what the fine will be for offenders.

The 3 hour parking ordinance has been on the books for many years, but has not been regularly enforced. Due to multiple complaints regarding long-term parking, the police department have decided to enforce the law.

We do want to prevent the ticketing of cars so please make sure to park in the free city lots or in your private lots if you plan on being in the Village for more than 3 hours between the hours of 7am - 6pm