Business News
LUCERNE, Calif. – Severe health issues are forcing well-known Lucerne resident and businessman George Conover to close the Lucerne PROmart hardware store.
People who have been in Lucerne for any length of time have likely made Conover's acquaintance, and discovered him to be an invaluable resource for home repair and improvement projects, or just for a pleasant conversation.
Conover is currently resting at home with a friend. A visit this week found his sharp sense of humor was on display.
Helpful professionalism and affable style made Conover and PROmart welcome community fixtures. Conover had been planning to rebrand the store as Lucerne Hardware this month and had designed a logo reminiscent of the Alps for a grand reopening.
Conover also had been at work rearranging the interior of the store to eliminate clutter and improve the flow for the new store.
This writer spent copious hours consulting Conover on various home projects, and just hanging around enjoying his company and conversation over the last decade. When in need of some tool or part, instead of , “Off to the store,” it was, “Going to visit George.”
Friends of Conover confirmed that the master plumber turned businessman had been quietly practicing charitable house calls. Conover also is a skilled computer programmer and had created from scratch his own unique point of sale system that he continually improved.
In an effort to raise money and help provide for Conover's needs, friends and family will open the store, located at 6020 Highway 20 at Second Avenue in Lucerne, for the next three weekends to liquidate the inventory at or below wholesale cost.
The store is stocked with many useful tools and supplies for chores from painting to plumbing and electric, as well as tools to help keep your home in order. Everything will be sold over the coming weekends.
PROmart is scheduled to be open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday, Sept. 7, through Sunday, Sept. 9; and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday, Sept. 14, through Sunday, Sept. 16.
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For Labor Day weekend, American consumers in 45 states will likely see the highest fuel prices they’ve ever seen at this time of year.
Only motorists in Alaska, Colorado, Montana, New Mexico and Wyoming will be spared from record high prices at the pump.
“The average motorist will be laboring a bit more to pay for gas this Labor Day weekend. When you return to work after the Labor Day holiday it might be a good time to ask your boss for a raise,” said Patrick DeHaan, senior petroleum analyst, www.GasBuddy.com .
“Although the end of summer driving season usually sends retail gas prices downward, they’ve got a long way to go before prices fall back to ‘tolerable.’ While Hurricane Isaac begins to weaken, there’s still enough upset motorists to think this was a category five storm,” he said.
“The national average is at $3.80 per gallon, 18 cents more than where we were a year ago, and eight states have an average price today at $4 a gallon or higher. Gas in New York City is averaging $4.06 a gallon; Los Angeles is at $4.15 a gallon, and those are relative bargains compared to the $4.35 a gallon we’re paying now in Chicago,” DeHaan added.
There’s no question that Hurricane Isaac’s timing and impact made a bad situation worse; forcing Gulf Coast refineries and others in its path to partial or full closures.
But if there’s a silver lining, it’s that the record highs at the pump are likely to move lower through the weekend.
“Contrary to popular belief that prices always rise during major holiday weekends, analysis of Labor Day weekend prices from 2001 through 2011 shows that the national average price of gas actually declined in 10 of the last 11 years,” said Gregg Laskoski, senior petroleum analyst for GasBuddy.com. “In three of those years the decline was nominal; by 0.5 cents per gallon or less. In 2006 we saw the greatest decrease from the Friday through Monday (3.3 cents per gallon); 2002 was the only year when Labor Day Weekend prices increased (+2.6 cents per gallon).”
GasBuddy operates GasBuddy.com and more than 250 similar Web sites that track gasoline prices at over 140,000 gasoline stations in the United States and Canada.
In addition, GasBuddy offers a free smartphone app which has been downloaded over 20 million times to help motorists find gasoline prices in their area.
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