Category: 3. Business

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Living on the doorstep of a theme park

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Can Universal UK shake things up?

Theme Park Kate

Jack Silkstone

‘Winners and losers’

DOWNEY, Calif. — Families gathering together to make tamales is a Christmas tradition. But with prices rising across the board, it’s becoming even more expensive to keep that tradition going.

“Every holiday is different, but this is the worst one I’ve ever been through,” said Daniel Arjon, a restaurant owner in Northern California. “It is selling a lot less, a lot less this year.”

“The economy of this state has just gone downhill, and it still is, and the fact that the Hispanic community has been suffering from that nonstop is very bad to see,” said Itzel Mendoza.

One of the key ingredients to make a tamale is masa, which is corn dough.

CNN recently reported that a pound of masa, on average, costs about $1.99. That’s up about 30 cents from this time last year. Plus, rising business costs across the board aren’t making it any easier.

“Everything is going up,” said Rolando Pozos, the president of Amapola Market. “From the property taxes, to the water, to the trash. So it is incredible how things that are completely out of our control is what makes it more difficult to run a business like ours.”

But Pozos said Amapola Market is fighting to continue what’s become somewhat a tradition of its own: keeping the cost of tamales steady.

He said they’ve kept tamale prices the same for three years in a row.

“Overall, yes, the bottom line is affected, but we try to manage, even crazy things about logistics and the supply chain,” Pozos said.

Customers who were lined up to buy ingredients for tamales at Amapola Market’s Downey store expressed relief.

“I think that’s amazing. Honestly, it’s really considerate,” said Lenette Sanchez. “Especially in this economy, it’s bringing smiles home and bringing the family closer.”

“Super Saturday,” considered the second busiest shopping day of the holiday season, is here. 

Retailers in Maryland, like Target, are offering lots of in-store deals today as many shoppers rush to get their last-minute holiday gifts. 

“It gives us guests that last time to come in and shop for toys, electronics, sporting goods, clothing, to get the stocking stuffers that they need to get as well too,” said Kevin Lewis, the store director at Target in Pikesville. “You know, I think our guests have really tapped in to shopping in electronics. You see a lot of toys, iPads, TVs that guests are really you know, they want to shop and they want to buy and they want to get for their family and friends.”

As expected, data from Sensormatic Solutions predicts today will end up among the top shopping days of 2025.

Based on its U.S. traffic data, the season’s busiest shopping days are:

• Dec. 20 (Super Saturday)
• Dec. 13 (Second Saturday in December)
• Dec. 21 (Super Sunday)
• Dec. 26 (Boxing Day)
• Nov. 29 (Saturday after Thanksgiving)
• Dec. 23 (Tuesday before Christmas)
• Dec. 6 (First Saturday in December)
• Dec. 27 (Saturday after Christmas)
• Dec. 19 (Friday before Christmas)

“The holiday rush is right around the corner, and competition for customer attention this year will be fierce,” said Tony D’Onofrio, president of Sensormatic Solutions. “With economic uncertainty affecting both shoppers and businesses, stores that prioritize precise, personalized omnichannel promotions will have an edge come November, and data analytics will be the key enabler of these efforts. Our busiest days predictions can help retailers get a sense of what’s to come and — when paired with source-to-store visibility into their supply chains — guide the path to the convenient, seamless in-store experiences shoppers crave.”

The Saturday after Christmas is also considered to be among the busiest shopping days as holiday returns start rolling in. 

The popularity of online shopping has led to a “rapid rise in fake and unsafe goods” being delivered to UK homes, according to the charity Electrical Safety First (ESF).

It warns against buying electrical products from online-only sellers because they may not comply with UK safety standards and could cause fires.

“Online marketplaces aren’t regulated in the same way as high street retailers,” said Karter Kane, ESF’s policy and public affairs adviser for Northern Ireland.

“So we would always recommend that people shop from a reputable high street retailer, or their [high street retailer’s] online store to ensure the best chance of getting a safe electrical product.”

The ESF regularly buys electronic items from online sellers to conduct its own safety tests on products.

In 2023, those tests identified more than 50 dangerous or non-compliant devices sold by leading international online marketplaces, external.

These included a food blender which emitted smoke and a hairstyler that could cause an electric shock.

The investigation led to Amazon Marketplace, eBay, Wish.com and AliExpress removing certain products from their websites after ESF highlighted concerns.

Ms Kane explained many online-only electrical goods are “often coming from a third-party seller, which could be based anywhere in the world”.

The EFS said although no-one is legally allowed to sell unsafe products to UK consumers no matter where they are based, the rules are not applied consistently.

The charity is lobbying for new legislation so that online marketplaces “face the same legal duties as high street retailers to ensure the goods they sell are safe”.

The documentary showcases the collaboration between Hyundai Motor and WFP, focusing on WFP’s work in the Philippines following 2024’s Typhoon Christine. Through the lens of Ian James Secillano, a member of the local emergency response agency, Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction and Management, and WFP Programme Policy Officer Alice Follosco, the film highlights how the IONIQ 5 fleet can help teams reach food-insecure communities more quickly and sustainably.

The partnership film further highlights Hyundai Motor’s collaboration with WFP, showcasing the advanced technologies integrated into IONIQ 5 EVs and their effectiveness in supporting disaster relief efforts.

Hyundai Motor has incorporated cutting-edge features into its donated IONIQ 5 EVs, enhancing their performance in challenging environments. One such feature is the transparent metal-coated heating glass technology, a Hyundai Motor world-first development. This innovation coats the windshield with thin layers of metal, such as silver, enabling the glass to emit heat using only 48 volts of electricity. This ensures rapid removal of frost, snow and moisture while blocking up to 60 percent of solar energy, making the vehicles suitable for extreme weather conditions.

IONIQ 5 also boasts eco-friendly long-range capabilities and Vehicle-to-Load (V2L) functionality, enabling the vehicle to power emergency communication devices in areas without electricity. Additional features include on-board refrigerators, which allow field workers to safely transport temperature-sensitive supplies, further enhancing the vehicles’ contributions to relief missions.

Through its partnership with WFP, Hyundai Motor reaffirms its commitment to ‘Progress for Humanity’ by supporting sustainable and innovative humanitarian solutions.

* Note: WFP does not endorse any product or service.

The thousands of people who line up on weekends to buy a fresh loaf of sourdough owe a debt of gratitude to Les Warby.

In 1977 the baker from Kiama, on the NSW South Coast, was jailed after refusing to pay a fine for the crime of baking fresh bread between the hours of Friday evening and Monday morning.

“They [police] just turned up while he was in the bakery and more or less handcuffed him,” his son Richard Warby said.

Mr Warby remembers the time well.

The 83-year-old ran a bakery in Gerringong, while his father operated another nearby in Kiama.

Noticing the weekend influx of tourists to the area, Les Warby saw a business opportunity to provide fresh bread to the masses.

“There were people lined up down the footpath at Kiama,, and we supplied a shop in Wollongong in the main street and they had the same problem — they had lines of people down the footpath of Crown Street,” Richard Warby said.

“Everyone wanted to buy this fresh bread that my father would bake.”

The fight for fresh bread

It seems unfathomable now, but the Bread Act of 1969 made it an offence for a commercial operator to bake or deliver bread on weekends.

When members of the Kiama business community and council heard about their local baker being taken to prison, they piled into a minibus and travelled to Long Bay Jail to pay the fine and have him released.

They were also granted a meeting with then-premier Neville Wran.

“We then had a full inquiry into the Bread Act, and I was called as a witness — I had to go to Sydney in the witness box to give my story and they changed the law.”

40th anniversary

The original laws were in place to protect small weekday bakeries, enforce regular working hours and prevent bakeries from selling their product at a higher price on weekends.

Through the Warby family’s advocacy, amendments to the Bread Act were made in 1985 to allow for bakeries to produce bread on weekends.

That then led to the Bread (Amendment) Act 1988, which officially deregulated the rules around bread making, baking and deliveries.

At the time, industrial relations minister John Fahey told the NSW parliament:

“Honourable members of this side of the house are firmly of the view that government has no rightful role in dictating to the bread industry the allowance hours in which baking and delivery operations may be conducted.”

After Les Warby’s brief stint behind bars, he and son Richard combined their bakeries into one shop at Kiama.

Richard Warby said he was proud of his family’s role in changing the law.

“My father believed you can have fresh milk, you could have fresh meat, you could have fresh everything else on a Saturday or Sunday, why can’t you have fresh bread?”

Some small businesses in Ottawa say they’re still seeing customers deliberately spending their money closer to home this holiday season after U.S. tariff threats rattled Canadians earlier this year.

At Maker House, a Hintonburg shop that sells only Canadian-made goods, founder Gareth Davies said the shift was immediate.

“From February onward, we got a huge uptick due to the vitriol from our neighbours to the south,” Davies said Saturday, adding that it was nearly double what he saw the previous year.

“Canadians became very protective of our economy, of our neighbours, of our country.”

In March, Davies said sales hit 120 per cent year-over-year, a significant boost during what he said is normally his slow season. 

While the initial surge has cooled, Davies said sales remain well above last year’s levels heading into the days before Christmas.

“We might be up like 30 or 40 per cent on the previous December.”

Similar patterns are showing up at SFR Distillery in Ottawa, where salesperson Rachel Speakman says customers are increasingly asking about the origins of what they’re buying.

“People are very excited to hear that it’s 100-per-cent Canadian product,” said Speakman, who works in the distillery’s stall at the Ottawa Christmas Market. 

The distillery makes American-style bourbon whisky, which Speakman said has been popular since American brands were taken off LCBO shelves.

She said they saw a noticeable bump when tariff and annexation threats dominated headlines, and that hasn’t really gone down since.

Speakman said the biggest driver for their customers is the local aspect.

“It’s not just our distillery, but it’s the people who are providing us with the corn, with the barley, with all of our products that go into our bottles,” she said.  “You’re not just supporting local, you’re supporting Canada.”

Trend might not last, says expert

But according to Santo Ligotti, patriotic shopping impulses have “definitely softened a bit” since the beginning of the year.

Instead, consumers are prioritizing proximity, said Ligotti, vice-president of marketing at the Retail Council of Canada.

“Canadians told us it’s more about shopping locally,” Ligotti told Ontario Today late last month.

The council’s internal polling, he said, still showed 86 per cent of consumers plan to shop close to home over the holidays, while 84 per cent said they’d be looking for Canadian goods.

But Ligotti says price is the most consistent factor in how people make purchasing decisions. 

People who were more likely to buy Canadian earlier because they wanted to jump on the patriotic bandwagon might be more conscious of their spending during the holidays, he said.

“They’re going to look and say, ‘Well that’s great, I do want to do that. But I need to also make sure that I’m keeping to my budget,’” he said.

However, Davies at Maker House said he hopes both the “buy Canadian” and “buy local” trends will persevere.

“Keep on thinking about how your money holds power and how you can make a difference, even as one person, through your spending habits.”

The bargaining group that represents 67,500 health workers in British Columbia has voted 54.2 per cent in favour of a four-year agreement. 

The deal follows other contracts recently signed with the government, which include wage increases of three per cent in each year, and the Facilities Bargaining Association says it also has gains in support for recruitment, retention and workplace safety. 

A statement from the Finance Ministry says the workers will also receive wage comparability adjustments in response to the 15 per cent wage cuts made in 2004 by the former Liberal government. 

The bargaining unit covers hundreds of health-care occupations, including care aides, lab assistants, health records clerks, dietary and cleaning staff, nursing unit assistants, and trades and maintenance workers.

The Hospital Employees’ Union (HEU), which leads the bargaining unit, represents about 95 per cent of the workers covered by the new agreement.

HEU secretary-business manager Lynn Bueckert, who is also the lead negotiator for the FBA, says in a statement that the agreement reflects members’ priorities at a time when staffing shortages continue to strain B.C.’s health system.

“This agreement will help better attract and keep workers in the system, so patients and residents get the care they deserve.”

She says the agreement also addresses long-standing inequities.

“The wage restoration plan is a landmark victory for health care workers that rights historic wrongs and ensures their pay keeps pace with comparable public sector jobs,” says Bueckert. 

“Health employers and government have committed to extending restoration measures beyond 2029, in permanent and ongoing wage adjustments over the following two collective agreements.”

Cocktail Classes at Sliders

Mix it Up

Shake things up this winter with hands-on cocktail classes at Sliders. Learn the art of mixing classic drinks from the pros, then take your new skills (and a cocktail kit) home with you.

Each session features three signature cocktails made with premium Maine spirits. You’ll get two drinks to sip while you learn, plus everything you need to recreate the magic at home. Stick around after class to mingle on the Balcony and show off your newfound bartending skills.

$50 per person | Check in with your host at Sliders Balcony.

Please note, liquor is not included in the cocktail kits.