Each year on Halloween, tens of thousands of partiers descend on Isla Vista near the University of California, Santa Barbara, and most stores within a 10-mile radius stock up on booze to meet the swell in demand. The results this year: 25,000 revelers, 311 arrests and 701 citations, according to the Santa Barbara County Sherriff’s [...]
Despite turning in a $25 million profit last quarter, Westlake Village-based online marketing firm ValueClick disappointed Wall Street analysts with a gloomy revenue forecast for the fourth quarter. But the company has quietly signed more than 70,000 square feet of new lease agreements and stockpiled hundreds of millions of dollars in cash and untapped credit [...]
The economic slump has many small businesses scrambling to cut costs, but as a direct result one group of businesses is getting a boost: information technology firms. As small businesses look for ways to streamline their budgets, tri-county IT firms are seeing a wave of new clients — if they offer the right products and [...]
Face facts. This has been a horrible year to have to navigate a business through the tri-county economy. Between the meltdown in commercial real estate, California budget woes, softness in tourism, the foreclosure mess and the ongoing travails of community banking, this has been one for the books. But hey, kvetching only makes things worse. [...]
The Santa Ynez Valley Marriott just became the first hotel certified by Santa Barbara County’s Green Business Program. And it all started when General Manager Mike Hendrick heard Bill Hayward of Hayward Lumber speak at a green business luncheon. “We were already listed as a participating business, but we hadn’t done the big thing — [...]
Wine profits and stimulus money are helping fuel expansion at one of the fastest-growing renewable energy companies on the Central Coast. San Luis Obispo-based REC Solar has expanded from 20 employees in 2005 to about 500 today and will install 1,700 solar systems this year. The company predicts that business in the agriculture sector — [...]
For years now, the city of Atascadero has retained a strong resemblance to the mudhole for which it was named. Dominated by construction zones, detours and piles of dirt, the core of the city is usually one storm away from being a muddy mess. But one development — the Colony Square Project — could provide [...]
A San Luis Obispo-based aviation company that provides private jet charters has broken ground on a $10 million corporate jet center near the regional airport. Aviation Consultants, a private company that runs the San Luis Jet Center, is building a massive new facility near the San Luis Obispo County Regional Airport. The nearly 80,000-square-foot project includes [...]
It’s nice to see traditions get established — especially when it comes to philanthropy. That’s why we once again recognized Montecito Bank & Trust for its seventh annual Community Dividends program, where some 150 area nonprofits shared in $1 million in grants at a luncheon on Nov. 23. The privately held bank, which has nine [...]
At first blush, there doesn’t seem to be too much connection between Nao Takasugi and Abel Maldonado. They are generations and miles apart in their backgrounds. But Takasugi, who passed away Nov. 19 at age 87, and Maldonado, who was nominated to the lofty post of lieutenant governor shortly before Thanksgiving, do share plenty of [...]
It’s all smiles and sauvignon in Happy Canyon’s vineyards
Towbes Group grabs Goleta with Groupon-like deals at retailers
Social-media IPOs could launch Golden State sustainability fund
Ventura County brokers hold out ’til 2013 for real recovery
Name changes and new faces at SLO and Oxnard law firms
From apartments to industrial spaces, deals close in the region