The Burlingame Voice

B'gains in B'game

I've been enjoying the rash of bargains that are coming our way lately courtesy of two social networking sites and the City.  If you are enrolled with Groupon, you have seen deals come through lately for Straits (50% off) and the nice lingerie store on the Avenew (Charmelle28).  Opentable has been fighting back so as to not be left out and La Boheme had a 50% off deal with them recently as well.

Now we have free music from the City library.  Through a trial deal where the library buys digital music in bulk from a Virginia-based company called Freegal, cardholders can download three songs a week--as long as everyone together stays under 300 songs per week.  That's sort of the reverse of Groupon where the deal tips if more people buy it.  I tried Freegal from the library site and it worked better with Firefox than IE.  This is a $3000 trial that they paid a buck a song for according to a piece in the Daily Post, so download away for the next ten weeks!

 

Northern Veggie Delight

When I was salivating over the impending opening of a produce store in the Avenue area, a blogger asked about the one on B'way.  Here is that store at Paloma and B'way.  Eat your veggies!

 

Veggie Delight

It appears B'game is about to join San Mateo and Millbrae in having a dedicated produce store.  Dean's in Millbrae is a bit of an institution and doubled in size a year or so ago.  With Safeway closed for sometime to come, I'm looking forward to fresh produce in downtown on a daily basis.  I hear the owners also have a restaurant elsewhere and know their produce.  Eat healthy!

 

Does anyone know about Blue Bettie Coffee?  I'm all for some quality competition for Starbucks and Peet's on the Avenew, but it gets no hits on Google.

Parade Music Stops

The Mercury Times highlighted the budget-driven demise of the Holiday parade this year.  It is reporting

The holiday celebration on Burlingame Avenue won't be as merry this December, as officials said they can no longer afford the annual parade down the commercial drag.

The clincher was

Despite the foot traffic, shop owners said business suffers on the night of the parade because the main drag and some of the connecting streets are blocked to traffic.

The newly formed downtown business improvement district, to which merchants pay fees for joint advertising and projects, said it did not want to fund the event.

I'm trying to be cautiously optimistic about the holiday season for local retailers.  The Avenew is reviving a bit, air travel is up as are the airlines profits so hopefully B'game's TOT (transient occupancy or "hotel" tax) will be up too and the parade can return in 2011.

 

Weedmart in B'game

KCBS had a small clip about the "Walmart of Weed" planned for Oakland that would be a 60,000 square foot facility offering pot growers' supplies, classes and apparently a garden area.  I thought, "How Berkeley".  But then today's Daily Post reports that the company

announced plans to open 75 franchises, beginning in Burlingame, San Francisco and Sacramento.  The address in Burlingame wasn't released yesterday.  Michael Hunt, a spokesman for WeGrow, said the franchisee in Burlingame got cold feet when the Post asked for the address.

But Hunt said, "I don't think it will be on Broadway or Burlingame Avenue".

Well, that would really spice-up the tonight's City Council conversation about our Downtown Specific Area Plan.  The old Drive-in site has a lot of room.  Good thing the school district bought the old Hoover School site back since it already has the classrooms WeGrow might need and the outdoor amphitheatre in the back has a lot of interesting growing areas around it.  The Post also reported that the B'game location won't be as big as Oakland's and will be open in two months.  I guess they could make the new building where the old Walgreen's is very green.  They could even reuse the sign!

Cobras invade Burlingame

For just about an hour, a group of Cobras--(Shelby Cobras, that is), congregated near the tennis courts in Washington Park. It was informal group that enjoys taking drives around Northern California. members if the group hail from Pleasanton, Livermore, Danville and and other towns nearby. It's nice to see Burlingame as a destination. As the drivers talked, keeping close watch on their vehicles, their traveling companions shopped nearby Downtown Burlingame. Nice to see that they not only stopped by to see our fair city, but to drop a few bucks while they were here.

Then their motors roared in unison and they took off en mass as if a mongoose had arrived to scare all the Cobras away.

BIDs are in --Time for Improvements

On Monday night the Council will assess what the voting results are for the Avenew BID.  There seems to be massive confusion on the part of some ill-informed merchants as to what the Council's responsibilities are.  They count the votes and, if the BID passes, they collect the money.  If the recalcitrant few cannot win the election among their peers--they lose.  Welcome to democracy.

Here is the Daily Journal's preview

Efforts to block the creation of a Burlingame Avenue business improvement district may have fallen short after city staff revealed there was only 31.3 percent protest petitions.

The petitions were allowed to be turned in until the end of the Burlingame City Council public hearing on the matter held earlier this month. However, numerous petitions were turned in which didn’t give staff enough time to validate and fairly count the votes. A total of 216 petitions were filed, not all of which were valid. If a majority of businesses oppose the proposal, it cannot move forward. Since this is not the case, on Monday the City Council will consider allowing the proposal.

Renew the Avenew!

BID or No BID?

The Daily Journal piece on this week's BID discussion and merchants' concerns notes

More than 270 protests against the creation of a Burlingame Avenue business improvement district were filed, but it is not yet known if there are enough votes to disqualify the effort.

About 60 percent of a small sample of the protests were deemed valid and the rest will be examined in more detail since

Votes from the estimated 550 businesses in the Burlingame Avenue area are weighted based on the amount of money a business would pay should the BID go into effect.

It could be a close vote.

Pet Food Express Off and Running

Yesterday, the Pet Food Express store held its Grand Opening at the Blockbuster location (or the Rorke's location for you old timers or next to the original City Hall location for you really, really old timers).  It was truly a grand event with Diane Dwyer of KNTV, Ivan the BPD K-9, and Tillman the world-famous skateboarding dog all present.

I tried out the do-it-yourself dog washing stations which will compete with Scrub-a-Pup in San Mateo and wandered the aisles full of all sorts of dog and cat accoutrements.  Total fun.  Here's a great shot of Tillman doing his thing courtesy of Mark Rogers Photography who was on hand to capture the day for the store's advertising.  Thanks for sharing, Mark.

Avenue Update

We are still at the tipping point I mentioned back in February on the Avenue.  My stroll last night counted eight vacancies--nine if you count Potpourri in its final throes.  I didn't count what appears to be a "shabby chic" furniture store that looks like it is opening soon or the new Vans shop since they are pretty sure things at this point.

The pet food store's progress seems to have slowed down.  Does anyone know of any more new businesses coming?