Everybody’s business

Deli selly
John McKinley tells me that when he and his wife, Dara, were posting an online ad at www.bizben.com, hoping to sell their business, he said, “You know who’s going to call tomorrow? Devanie from the News & Review.”

Sure enough, this nosy reporter noticed the McKinleys are looking to sell Bustolini’s Delicatessen at Eighth and Broadway. They’re asking $70,000, and they hope whoever buys it continues to run it as it is: a high-quality Italian deli like those found in the old neighborhoods of New York or San Francisco.

John McKinley said that with children ages 20 months and a month and one-half, running a small business was just too much. “There’s not enough time to do it properly with the kids,” he said.

“It’s an exciting opportunity for somebody who’s looking to go into the food business,” he added, suggesting that someone with top-notch managerial skills looking to put in more hours could make a great go of it.

McKinley, formerly of the band Brutilicus Maximum, hopes to do something with music again, while Dara is thinking of studying nursing.

He also asked if I could work in a reference to “the Wal-Marting of America” and somehow bag on corporations. Gladly.

Pretty fly
The managers of the Redding Municipal Airport are hoping to lure Chicoans north instead of south for flights to Las Vegas.

Manager Rod Dinger points out that Redding is closer to Chico than Sacramento, and flights start at about $163 to get to Vegas and back. (That’s cheaper than Sac flights to and from Vegas, which run about $216 on America West.)

The flights are available thanks to Allegiant Air, a smallish company with nine aircraft. Their business consists mostly of flying to Vegas from various cities, plus charter flights.

They were scoping out cities to expand to, when Redding offered an advertising match of up to $70,000, which Dinger expects the city can recoup through various fees, fueling and parking. For the rest of the year, for passengers who fly out on Mondays, the airport will waive parking fees for the week they’re gone.

Dinger, who’s already made the Vegas trip twice, said some of the flights almost fill the 163-passenger jets. In a passenger study done before Allegiant Air signed on, he said, “Las Vegas was one of the top destinations for the eight-county region our airport serves.”

One degree of separation
I always knew our former colleague Jason Ross was super-cool—too cool for us, in fact. For the second year in a row, the former CN&R writer/editor has ended up on stage at the Emmy awards. And, like a schoolgirl geek, I’m pointing at the screen going, “There’s Jason. There he is. Look at him grinning behind Jon Stewart—he’s so happy. Wow. It’s Jason.”

Jason, whose nickname for me was “A-Train,” used to edit our calendar and arts sections before leaving for the mean streets of New York City. He worked in the publishing industry before pitching his comedic wisdom to The Daily Show, which snapped him up. Then, they won some Emmy awards. Coincidence? I think not.