Everybody’s business

Hot donut development now
There may be a hole in the Krispy Kreme dream after all.

Articles in the Sacramento Bee and the Sacramento Business Journal laid it out last week.

Krispy Kreme wants to use franchisees to break into new areas, and then buy them out to make the Winston-Salem, N.C.-based corporation more money.

Golden Gate Donuts President Brad Bruckman is reportedly selling his one-third share in the group of 14 Northstate stores, including Chico’s. The deal will be complete in March, when at least half of the employees of Golden Gate, which is based in Sacramento, will be out of jobs.

Tim Hinchey, Golden Gate Donuts’ vice president of brand development and a helpful, upbeat guy when I’ve talked to him in the past, said, “The issue for us right now is really no comment.”

Brooke Smith, spokesperson at corporate headquarters in Winston-Salem, said, “There has been no ownership change in the Krispy Kreme franchise in Northern California. As I’m sure you can understand, we would not comment on a potential change unless a deal was final.”

Last month, American Journalism Review ran an article about the phenomenon of how community newspapers shower favorable coverage on Krispy Kreme, hammering on the hot light and falling under the doughnut’s “spell.”

Ask and ye shall receive
The cable/dish fight is getting nastier by the minute, and I’m not about to say which side is piggier. All I know is, I like to watch TV.

When my cable went out the other day, because Comcast was working to improve things in my neighborhood, it trumped the Tivo-ing of All My Children, just as Bianca and Kendall’s plot to fudge the amniocentesis results was thickening. Curses!

So, I called Comcast and asked them to please prorate my bill and not charge me for that day. They were glad to do so but said it’s not automatic: You have to call and request it.

Word to the wise.

Bad press
Last week, I saw and enjoyed the movie Bad Santa. (It’s not for the kiddies.) Over the weekend, I picked up my San Francisco Chronicle to read about a Bay Area department store Santa talking trash about his counterparts right here in Chico.

It’s in the context of a story by a U.C. Berkeley journalism grad student, who interviewed Santas on how to be good at their jobs. She also pumped them for twisted Santa tales they have heard.

An excerpt, paraphrasing Macy’s primary Santa, reads: “A Santa in Chico was a drug addict, Santa John said. ‘He came in looking lousy always,’ he recalled. As soon as his bosses caught this Santa ‘shooting up,’ he was dismissed, he said. Another Chico-based Santa had the habit of nipping alcohol from a water bottle, Santa John said. ‘One day he slid off the chair, so he was replaced.’”

Well, our Santa reputation is shot.