Vicki Honeyman gives Doug Wathen a haircut in her shop, Heavenly Metal, which shares space with her other business, Vicki’s Wash & Wear Haircuts. In the background to the left is a sandwich board sign for Heavenly Metal, tucked into the corner since Honeyman was notified that it's illegal to put it outside the store.

Vicki Honeyman’s Heavenly Metal is easy to miss. Not only is it the sole retail shop on East Ann, but the business is also set back from the street. Until recently, Honeyman relied on a portable sign she set up on the northeast corner of East Ann and Fourth Avenue to bring in business. But earlier this month, a city official told her she had to take her sign down. In Ann Arbor, it’s illegal.

Honeyman says that since the city made her take her sign down, she’s seen a significant drop in the number of customers coming into Heavenly Metal. Without the sign, people don’t know her business is there.

“It’s completely affected my business,” Honeyman said, describing it as “devastating” to her income.

The Ann Arbor city council considered a measure in February that would have amended the sign ordinance to make portable signs legal, allowing businesses to buy annual permits to use them. But when that resolution was voted down, city officials decided to step up enforcement of the existing sign ordinance. Business groups and retailers have protested – it’s likely that city staff will propose a new permitting system for council to consider next month, one that’s based on sidewalk occupancy permits.

Sign Ordinance: Some Background

Honeyman’s sign was in violation of Chapter 61, Section 5:508 of the city code, which prohibits a variety of signs: exterior banners, pennants, spinners and streamers; portable exterior signs; and signs erected in the public right-of-way (excluding portable “open house” signs).

The ordinance hasn’t been strenuously enforced – in fact, the chair of the city’s sign board of appeals quit out of frustration about the issue.

There have also been efforts – so far unsuccessful – to change the ordinance. At its Feb. 16, 2010 meeting, Ann Arbor city council discussed a measure brought forward by councilmember Sabra Briere (Ward 1) to amend the sign ordinance. It would have regulated, through a permitting system, the placement of portable “sandwich board” signs, which are widely used.

During a public hearing that night, council heard from people on both sides of the issue. From Chronicle coverage:

Kathy Griswold raised concerns about possible interference of such signs with sight distances. If the system were to be complaint-driven, she warned, there could be delays in getting signs removed that obscured sight lines.

Also during the public hearing, Susan Pollay, executive director of the Downtown Development Authority, read a brief statement on behalf of the DDA, saying that sandwich board signs are part of what makes for a vibrant downtown experience. She suggested that the system be adopted without permits and then reviewed after one year to determine if there was adequate compliance.

Carolyn Grawi of the Center for Independent Living pointed out that sandwich board signs can pose a problem for people with disabilities – for the blind, the signs are in unexpected places, and for those who use wheelchairs, the signs can pose access issues. Grawi cautioned that vibrancy did not necessarily mean cluttering.

During deliberations, several councilmembers – including Briere – said they felt the ordinance needed more work. It was unanimously defeated, and an increase of enforcement was foreshadowed:

What would the effect of defeating the measure be on those who were already using such signs? The city attorney’s office is recommending that the ordinance – which does not allow use of such signs – be enforced. Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) expressed her concern that business owners be made aware that there would be enforcement efforts starting.

The issue was also discussed at a March 30, 2010 retreat of the Ann Arbor planning commission. From Chronicle coverage:

Commissioner Jean Carlberg questioned plans to dissolve the current Sign Board of Appeals and move their work to the Zoning Board of Appeals. Chris Cheng, project manager for efforts to amend Chapter 61 of the city code on sign and outdoor advertising, said one goal was to reduce the number of committees and boards. [...]

Wendy Rampson reported that the former chair of the [Sign Board of Appeals], Steve Schweer, had quit because he was unhappy over a lack of enforcement of the sign ordinances. That’s about to change, she added – Cheng would be starting to ramp up enforcement in April. Looking somewhat glum about that prospect, Cheng said, “There are a lot of illegal signs out there.”

Enforcement Picks Up, Businesses Protest

The city’s Community Standards Unit and Planning Division began issuing written warnings concerning portable signs on April 1. Business owners in violation were told to remove the illegal sign within 24 hours. The warning informed them that if they failed to do so, city staff would remove the sign and the offending individual would receive a citation and face a fine ranging from $100 to $500. City officials would also confiscate the sign in question without notifying the business owner if the warning wasn’t heeded. The code violation would qualify as a misdemeanor.

Wendy Rampson, the city’s planning manager, told The Chronicle that at this point no tickets have been issued, just warning letters. She said several people have contacted her to say they feel the timing of the enforcement is less than ideal, given recent economic conditions. Those who have voiced complaints have said businesses are doing everything they can to bring in customers right now, and making them take down their signs isn’t helping.

Rampson explained that the city decided to start enforcing the ordinance in part because members of the public – including people with disabilities – have complained about signs obstructing the pedestrians’ right of way in the downtown area. Another factor, she said, was the city council’s unanimous rejection during its Feb. 16 meeting of the proposed ordinance amendment that would have made sandwich board signs legal.

“We felt we needed to move forward with a comprehensive enforcement,” Rampson said.

Separately, the city’s planning and development staff has been working for the past year to amend the sign ordinance in order to remedy inconsistencies, unrelated to the portable sign prohibition.

Businesses Weigh In

Honeyman said her sign was in a garden off the sidewalk, so it didn’t create an obstacle for pedestrians or create a hazard for handicapped individuals. The city’s actions in enforcing the sign ordinance are hurting small businesses, she said, and by extension the local economy and even the city’s personality. She accused the city of shirking responsibility for shops like Heavenly Metal in favor of big corporate entities like Google.

“The city of Ann Arbor needs us,” Honeyman said. “We’re the people who add color to the town.”

On the same day that she was issued the warning because of her sign, Honeyman said she sent letters of complaint to mayor John Hieftje, city council and Susan Pollay, executive director of the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority. She has not received a response.

“Now I just have to wait and see what’s going to happen,” Honeyman said. “I’m not doing anything bad. I’m just trying to make a living. I’m not trying to be a rebel. Please, city of Ann Arbor, support me.”

Jeff Pickell, outside of Kaleidoscope Books and Collectibles, his shop at the corner of North Fourth and East Ann.

Jeff Pickell, who owns Kaleidoscope Books and Collectibles on the northeast corner of North Fourth and Ann, just down the street from Honeyman’s Heavenly Metal, also received a warning about his sign usage. Pickell expressed confusion at the city’s action, saying that his sign had been on private – not city – property, and didn’t pose a threat to pedestrians.

“It’s not part of the traffic process,” Pickell said of his sign. “It’s not a danger or impediment. It’s off the sidewalk area. What’s the city trying to say?”

Pickell said he had contacted the city about the issue but also has not received a response. He said that taking down his sign likely won’t have a major impact on his business, since his store is more visible than Honeyman’s. However, he understands how the prohibition on signs hurts those whose shops have less of an obvious presence. Like Honeyman, he said the city doesn’t treat small businesses as kindly as it should.

“People are drawn to the city in part by the differences of the stores that are downtown,” Pickell said. “Small businesses should be protected. Not harassed. Not fined. It’s not only unnecessary. It’s stupid.”

City Backs Off, New Sidewalk Permitting System Possible

In light of the conflict surrounding the sign ordinance issue, Rampson said the city administration, planning staff and police department agreed to hold off on issuing any tickets or giving out any more warnings in order to discuss new approaches to portable signs. She said the Main Street and State Street area associations and the Ann Arbor Area Chamber of Commerce have shown interest in finding a way to make portable signs legal in the downtown area.

Members of the downtown merchants associations have suggested adding portable signs to the city’s current sidewalk occupancy permit system, Rampson said. Businesses currently file for sidewalk occupancy permits to reserve space in front of their establishment for dining or outdoor sales.

City officials are considering allowing business owners to use the same system, which would allow them to pay a fee for an annual or temporary permit to place portable signs on the sidewalk (with certain restrictions on, for example, the size of the sign). [.pdf file of current sidewalk occupancy permit application] A daily permit for sidewalk occupancy costs 5 cents for every square foot of sidewalk space. An annual permit costs $1 per square foot.

Although that’s the only solution to the portable sign issue being considered at this point, Rampson said other ideas might come up. In any case, city officials are looking to take action in the next couple of weeks.

“There is an interest in moving quickly,” Rampson said.

Ann Arbor city councilmember Sabra Briere (Ward 1) said she has drafted an ordinance that uses the same concept: changing the language of the sidewalk occupancy law to allow for portable signs. Briere said she sent the draft to city administrator Roger Fraser last week. Subsequently, she was notified that city staff will present the council with a memo on May 3 outlining a permit system that would make portable signs legal.

This week Fraser confirmed that his staff is working on a draft of an ordinance that would address the sign issue by modifying the rules for sidewalk occupancy permits, similar to the proposal that Briere has drafted. He also confirmed that city staff hope to present the ordinance draft to the city council for action at council’s May 3 meeting.

A Sense of Urgency

Briere said the legality of portable signs has been an issue for a long time. Not long after Briere first became a councilmember in 2007, Honeyman contacted her about finding a solution to the sign problem. In the summer and fall of 2009, Briere chaired a committee to come up with a way to make portable signs legal. The committee included Honeyman, South University Area Association director Maggie Ladd, Linda Briggs from the Ann Arbor Commission on Disability Issues, members of other merchants associations and the city’s planning department.

They concluded their meetings in November 2009. The proposal they drafted – which focused on changing the language of the city’s existing sign ordinance, rather than altering rules for sidewalk occupancy permits – was the one the city council voted down during its Feb. 16 meeting. Briere said the city attorney’s office and city staff had objections to the draft.

After voting down the proposed amendment, councilmembers asked city staff to continue working on the issue. Originally, Briere said, Rampson told the council that staff could have a revised ordinance ready in four months. Briere and other councilmembers, along with Ann Arbor business owners, felt that wasn’t fast enough. Though Briere said she understands that staff has a lot to do, she feels the city needs to take action soon.

“It’s getting to be warm weather,” Briere said. “People are walking around a lot. The city has a need to enforce the law. So, we should make it clear what the law is. Right now, we have not been enforcing the law for a number of years, so people believed what they were doing was legal. Now, people feel like we’re taking their rights away.”

And what about Honeyman and Heavenly Metal? Briere said including portable signs in the sidewalk occupancy permit system might allow Honeyman to place her sign on the corner of Fourth and Ann (something that the sign ordinance would not permit, since business owners are not allowed to place a sign on someone else’s property or on a street where they don’t have frontage).

Under the sidewalk occupancy permit rules, however, businesses that have frontage and/or a street-level presence on a certain street simply have first dibs on the sidewalk space. It’s possible for others to obtain permits for the space – this happens most prominently during the annual Art Fairs.

“[Honeyman] could get permission from the people on Fourth,” Briere said. “So, in theory, this could work for her. But whether people would allow it to happen, I just don’t know.”

Brad Hedeman, who handles marketing and purchasing for Zingerman's Mail Order, in their temporary retail store (the front entry for the warehouse).

According to Mo Frechette, they miss seeing customers out there in warehouse land. Toni Morell says they’re bored during off season. There’s also some inventory they’d like to move at discounted prices, Frechette says, so “why not do it as a hush-hush locals-only thing?”

The Chronicle suspects that Zingerman’s fans won’t really care why the managing partners of Zingerman’s Mail Order decided to open a super low-key discount retail store – they’ll just care about the when, where and what.

So here’s the deal: Every Friday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., starting last Friday and running for 21 weeks, the warehouse at 610 Phoenix Drive will be selling 21 types of items at deep discounts – including some things priced at $21 – to anyone who happens to stop by. The stock will be different each week, though there’ll likely be some overlap, too – you can sign up to get weekly emails alerting you to what’s on offer.

When we stopped by on March 13, the venture’s kickoff day, we watched a steady stream of people drop in – mostly from the surrounding industrial park, which includes the Borders Group headquarters and the Ann Arbor Learning Community, a charter school. Frechette said they’d told some of the surrounding businesses about it – plus there’s a sign at the entrance to their driveway – but otherwise, only some “leakage” about the store on Facebook and the blogosphere. Yet word is getting out.

The “store” is really just a fairly small entryway that otherwise contains, well, nothing. They’ve put in a desk for someone to act as cashier, a few shelves, and a curtain made from burlap coffee bags stitched together to cover the entry into the cavernous warehouse – the bags carried beans imported by Zingerman’s Coffee Co., which does its roasting in a portion of the warehouse. And it smells just that good.

This is about the only indication you'll find that Zingerman's Mail Order is having a warehouse sale on Fridays. The white building in the background is the headquarters for Borders Group.

While we were there, Brad Hedeman kindly took the time to give us a tour of the operation, aside from the store. He handles marketing and purchasing for the mail order business, and explained why they were looking for something more to do this time of year.

The business is intensely seasonal. Of their $8 million in annual sales, half of that comes during the six weeks around the holidays. And half of that $4 million comes during the week before Christmas.

Employment reflects that seasonal arc as well. Though the mail order business employs about 50 people now, including part-timers, during the holiday crush that number shoots up to between 350 to 400 people.

But on Friday, the warehouse was quiet. The long yellow conveyor belt used during peak times was silent, and the phones weren’t ringing during the short time we chatted with the staff there waiting to take orders – though about 60% of orders now come in via their website.

Sorry, but the Booty Bin at Zingerman's Mail Order warehouse is just for employees.

We met Luna, a friendly pup camped out in the office area, and walked by the Booty Bin – shelves stocked with products that are steeply discounted for employees.

In a way, the temporary retail store is like a Booty Bin for the public: You don’t know exactly what might show up there, but chances are you’ll find something you like and can afford, or at least covet.

Last Friday, the store’s offerings included Mattei Biscotti, Olive Oil Torta, Ravida Sicilian Sea Salt, La Cassetta Vinegar, 1-year Grafton cheese, pickled raisins, Apple Mostarda, Taza Chocolate and 13 other items, many priced at more than half off their original cost. They’d also put together a box – one of everything – for $210, keeping with the 21 theme. And there were samples out of several products.

Toni Morell said she’s looking forward to warmer weather, when they can spill outside and add things like a lemonade stand. Plus, it’ll be warm – the warehouse is chilly, and the knit hats worn by Frechette and Hedeman, though undoubtedly stylish, were functional as well.

We never truly got a definitive answer to “why 21?” The timing means the store will stay open on Fridays through July, with August being a heavy vacation time before ramping up for the start of the seasonal push in September.

Or, as Mo Frechette said, it’s like blackjack, “where everyone wins” – and we’ll just leave it at that.

Mo Frechette, managing partner at Zingerman's Mail Order.

Jackie Evers and Betty Graytopp.

Brad Hedeman talks with a customer at the Zingerman's Mail Order retail store, which will be open on Fridays through July.

Though the arrow points up, donations are actually down at the Ann Arbor PTO Thrift Shop.

When The Chronicle came across a notice that the Ann Arbor PTO Thrift Shop was facing some challenges, we caught AATA bus No. 6 to South Industrial’s Resale Row to get the details.

Susan Soth, the store’s manager, said that donations of clothes, housewares and other items are down 50% since early December, compared to a year ago. And though sales had been going gangbusters earlier in 2008, since early December they’ve been flat or slightly down. On Sundays, for example, they’d generally bring in more than $1,000 – recently sales have been closer to $800. The winter season is typically a slower time of year, Soth said, but “it’s never been this slow, and we’re not alone.”

Soth believes that people who in the past donated to the thrift shop are now holding on to things, because of the rotten economy. Or instead of giving things away to charity, they’re selling the stuff on eBay to bring in extra cash.

The Chronicle encountered anecdotal evidence of the former phenomenon just last week. County commissioner Barbara Levin Bergman told us jokingly that she’d been shopping at the Home Shopping Network these days – that is, pulling things out of her closets and storage, instead of buying something new.

At the PTO Thrift Shop, the most noticeable shortages are in the houseswares section: Dishes, pots, pans and other kitchenware. In some cases, the shelves are literally bare, though Soth said they try to spread out what they have to make it look a little less sparse. Donations of electronics are down too, she said. Same for men’s clothing.

Susan Soth, manager of the Ann Arbor PTO Thrift Shop, shows The Chronicle just how bare some of their shelves are in the housewares section. Pretty darn bare.

The only real bright spot has been a little extra business from the set crew of “Betty Anne Waters,” the Hilary Swank film that’s shooting in the area this month. They’ve been in four times so far, Soth said, each time buying about $200 to $300 worth of linens, curtains and other household items.

Just down the road from the PTO is the city’s ReUse Center, where manager Gary Urick told The Chronicle they’re seeing a similar trend, though not to the same degree. The center is getting fewer large appliances. And items that people brought in when they were getting rid of cabinets and such before doing some “discretionary redecorating” – there’s not as much of that happening these days, he said.

Like Soth, Urick characterized the winter as a slow time anyway, and that while donations were down, sales for December and January had been stable. He said they’d know by mid-April whether something was at play other than just a seasonal slump.

This isn’t an omnibus article looking at all the thrift and resale shops in town, but we were hoping to hit the Resale Row cluster on Industrial south of Jewett, which includes the PTO thrift shop, ReUse Center and Klothes Kloset, an upscale consignment shop. (The Row also includes Woman in the Shoe on Rosewood and the Salvation Army store on South State.) However, on Monday the Kloset is closed, so we gave them a call the next day.

The exterior of the Klothes Kloset, an upscale consignment store at 2401 S. Industrial.

Owner Patricia Wojtowicz stressed that her consignment store isn’t a thrift shop, but like other retailers, she said she’s been hit by the economy. Sales are way down – about 80% of her customers are people on a budget, and they aren’t making nearly as many purchases as in the past.

She’s also getting more people who are desperate for money, who don’t know how the consignment business works, and who bring in items that they want her to buy from them. “They bring in crap,” she said, things that are soiled or torn that even a thrift store wouldn’t accept. Or they bring in clothes they’ve bought at a thrift store, and want her to sell.

She charges a $20 membership fee before people can sell their clothes at her store, a nominal amount meant to discourage people who are just looking to make a quick buck. “Otherwise,” she said, “I would have a lot of people bringing in junk and wasting my time.”

Shoppers on Monday inside the cavernous ReUse Center at 2420 S. Industrial.

Bello Vino at the Plymouth Mall, near Plymouth and Nixon.

On Saturday, TeacherPatti posted a Tweet about the upcoming closing of Bello Vino Marketplace, and on Monday The Chronicle took the #2 AATA bus to the Plymouth Mall store to check things out. If you didn’t already know the grocery was set to close on Jan. 15, the empty or thinly-stocked shelves would be your first clue. Or you might notice the grim-faced employees – one of them told The Chronicle that they were informed of the decision on Friday, the day after Christmas. “It was kind of a slap in the face,” she said.

There’s a sign on the entrance, and letters to customers are getting passed out at the checkout stands. (The same message was posted on their website on Monday – the full text is at the end of this article). The owners attribute the store’s closing to current economic conditions. They are looking for a different space to continue selling wine and beer, but they haven’t yet found a new location.

A sign on the entrance to Bello Vino announced its closing date and deep discounts.

Meanwhile, Bello Vino’s remaining stock is deeply discounted – 50% for produce and cheese, 25% off meat and seafood, 40% off coffee and candy. On Monday morning, there was still a decent selection of beer, wine, meat and dairy, but the produce section was nearly depleted. It didn’t appear that anything was being restocked throughout the store.

Lou Ferris opened Bello Vino in the space formerly occupied by Merchant of Vino, which was bought by Whole Foods in 1997 and moved out of the Plymouth Mall in late 2002. He owns a farm in Superior Township, which at one point supplied up to 30 percent of Bello Vino’s produce, according to a 2007 Ann Arbor News article.

Two years ago, Ferris spoke at a planning commission public hearing and told the group that he’d invested heavily in the store but that it basically just broke even, according to planning commission minutes. That was true until this past year, when the downturn in the economy really took its toll, said Jennifer Ferris, vice president of the holding company Federated Capital Corp., through which her father owns Bello Vino and several other businesses.

(As an aside, Federated Capital Corp. also owns Great Lakes Central Railroad. That railroad operates trains on the state-owned tracks that run from Ann Arbor through Howell. Ferris has been working with the city of Ann Arbor to push for a north/south commuter rail service. In mid-2006 he hosted a group of community leaders on a train ride from Ann Arbor to Eight Mile Road in Northfield Township, to demonstrate the feasibility of the route. That project is still moving forward, Jennifer Ferris said. “We have a very big interest in commuter rail.”)

The decision to close Bello Vino was “very, very hard,” Jennifer Ferris said. The cost of food is rising, customers have been cutting back on their food budgets, and the market was over-saturated with grocery stores, she said, though she didn’t single out any one specific competitor. In Ann Arbor, Whole Foods opened a second store this fall at the corner of Ann Arbor-Saline and Eisenhower, and in February Plum Market opened its first store locally at the corner of Maple and Dexter-Ann Arbor. Both specialty groceries are direct competitors with Bello Vino.

Plymouth Mall is owned by Vern Hutton. Jeff Hutton, the mall’s property manager, says they’re pursuing another grocery store, but are in the very preliminary stages. Before Bello Vino’s decision to leave, the mall had a vacancy rate of less than 10%, he said. The biggest previous vacancies were caused by the departure this summer of the Ann Arbor District Library, which left after opening the nearby Traverwood branch, and Norton’s Flowers & Gifts. Those spots are still empty.

It’s a tough time to find a new tenant, Hutton said. In general, the economy has been hard on existing tenants, who’ve struggled for two years since the announced departure of Pfizer – the pharmaceutical’s large research campus is located across the street from Plymouth Mall. The University of Michigan recently announced plans to purchase the Pfizer site, but that deal isn’t expected to close until the summer of 2009.

Finally, as promised, here’s the text of a letter that Bello Vino is distributing to customers:

Dear friends,

With deep sadness, we regret to inform you that we will be shutting our doors on January 15. Five years ago this January, we opened with a dream and a hope of providing the freshest gourmet food to our community. It has been a remarkable journey as we have come to know the people and local businesses of Ann Arbor. Through our relationships with our customers and farmers, we have stayed passionate about local, sustainable, unique and delicious foods.

We are currently in the process of seeking a space to continue our Wine and Beer Departments. You will surely be aware if we are successful in that endeavor.

For the past year we have tried various strategies to make it through the current economic downturn. The decision to close our store was not an easy one. We understand the impact it will have on our distributors, local growers, employees and customers.

Thank you for your patronage, support and friendly faces that we have come to recognize and know throughout the last five years. It is our hope to return to the food community of Ann Arbor in the future.

Until then, thank you for your support and patronage.

Sincerely,

The Staff and Family of Bello Vino Marketplace

A cart full of gift-quality books at the Friends of the Library bookshop.

The Friends of the Ann Arbor District Library receives over 200,000 books every year, but they found out on Dec. 4 that the area they use for sorting them will soon be shrinking by half. The other half of the space that they use currently will be needed to accommodate equipment and materials from the Washtenaw Library for the Blind and Physically Disabled, which the AADL recently assimilated. Part of the strategy to ease the space crunch is to suspend acceptance of donations effective immediately. Expect to see signage in the library to that effect soon.

But the other part of the plan is to reconfigure the existing bookshop layout to display more books, as well as to cut prices in half. Prices for hardcover and trade paperbacks will be cut from $2 to $1, and mass paperbacks will drop from $.50 to $.25.

Janis Detlefs, who works with the Friends, let The Chronicle inside the bookshop yesterday morning to get a peek at some of the new layout for the bookshop. The bookshop area is separate from the sorting area and won’t be reduced as a part of the new configuration. She described how additional bookshelves would be lining the center of the shop to make room for more books.

Janis Detlefs shows The Chronicle where the new shelving units will go.

But she also said that a fairly rigorous culling of existing materials would be taking place. Alphabetized fiction, for example, wouldn’t disappear entirely, but it would be afforded less space. Likewise for videos in VHS format.

Detlefs said that the relatively short time frame came from the fact that the requirements for fire codes – the need to have 36-inch aisle ways, for example – hadn’t initially been factored into the planning. But Detlefs stressed that “we’re not being evicted or anything,” and said that the library had been very cooperative and was providing logistical and labor support. The reconfiguration of the sorting area needs to be finished by Jan. 5, she said.

Customers of the bookshop will notice the new pricing and new layout starting the next time the bookshop opens on Sat., Dec. 13 from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. and Sun., Dec 14 from 1-4 p.m. The following weekend there will be a $3 bag sale on selected items.

A German first reader printed in Fraktur style. There aren't many older books like this one at the bookshop, and The Chronicle has its eye on this one. Readers who want it better show up early next weekend.

Images from otherwise unusable books get recycled into holiday cards and are available for purchase at the bookshop.

Charlise Brown holds a going-out-of-business sign on Friday at the southeast corner of Main and Liberty. The Steve & Barry's store is at 301 S. State.

Holding a sign that was about twice her height, Charlise Brown stood at the corner of Main and Liberty on Friday, bundled up in a hat, earmuffs, scarf and other winter gear.

“Yeah, it’s pretty cold,” she said, pulling down the scarf that warmed the lower part of her face. She and three others will be positioned around town through Sunday, paid to advertise the going-out-of-business sale at Steve & Barry’s clothing store at 301 S. State St.

In August, The Ann Arbor News reported that the Ann Arbor store would remain open, even though the company had declared bankruptcy in July and planned to shut some of its 250+ locations nationwide. That announcement was made soon after the company, via its supplier, lost the license to make clothing using the University of Michigan name and logo. The business is known for its low-priced clothing, targeting the university student market. It also sells clothing lines by celebrities like Sarah Jessica Parker and Stephon Marbury of the New York Knicks.

On Wednesday, the Associated Press reported that the company had decided to close all remaining 173 stores and liquidate its inventory. On Friday, a clerk at the State Street store said they’d be open about another month.

The business was also in the news this week because of a class-action lawsuit brought against it by ex-employees who say the company violated the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act.

Meanwhile, visitors to downtown will see Charlise Brown working 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. through the weekend. She can look forward to high temperatures in the low 40s.

Design on T-shirts and tote bags sold at Middle Earth on South University.

One fine early autumn day this week, The Chronicle strolled into Middle Earth looking for anything Ann Arborish. We had come to the right place.

Just this summer, the iconic South U shop started selling T-shirts and tote bags with an Ann Arbor design they’d come up with themselves, and had printed down the street at Underground Printing. The items were in response to demand, says store manager Hope Meadows.

During the summer art fairs, she said, shoppers would come into Middle Earth looking for something distinctly Ann Arbor – and not with the ubiquitous University of Michigan logo. Not having anything to offer and not wanting to lose those potential sales, they decided to make their own Ann Arbor-centric line.

That’s why the “Ann Arbor for Obama” bumper stickers were created, too, and pins with sayings like “I’d rather be in Ann Arbor.”

Those and other pins – as well as greeting cards and magnets – are made by Meadows in her second business, Minds Eye Design. She started out in 2002 just making cards, using images clipped from old magazines and adding her own cheeky commentary.

Hope Meadows, Middle Earth store manager and owner of Minds Eye Design.

Middle Earth started carrying her cards in 2005 – they’re also sold in stores nationwide. Then just over two years ago, Meadows was in the store showing owner Cynthia Shevel her newest wares. Shevel said she was looking for a store manager, and ultimately hired her for that job.

That gives Meadows a great vantage point from which to do market research. And it’s one reason why she expanded her own product line earlier this year to include magnets and buttons – she noticed students were buying those kinds of things.

Meadows now uses the store as a kind of test market to see what sells. In addition to her vintage and Ann Arbor designs, the ones with an off-color international flavor – “Feckin’ Brilliant” and “Kiss My Arse,” among others – are popular.

They try to go local when they can, Meadows says. They buy many of their other T-shirts from Adrian’s T-Shirt Printery, a business located next to the St. Vincent de Paul store on Ann Arbor’s north side.

“I wish there were more options for local,” she says.

Middle Earth

Motto: “Harming only the humorless since 1967″

Where: 1209 S. University Ave., Ann Arbor

Hours: Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. (open til 8 p.m. on Friday); Sunday, noon to 6 p.m.

Phone: 734.769.1488

Localized buttons and bumper stickers sold at Middle Earth.

And then there’s Nathaniel.

Crystal Metzger, owner of Lexi's Toy Box on South Ashley, with Nathaniel.

Having an animal inside your store isn’t that unusual. Down the street, Downtown Home & Garden has Lewis the cat. A block away on South Main, shoppers at Peaceable Kingdom get sniffed by the owner’s dog, Jane.

But a bunny? The Chronicle doesn’t know of any other shop that has one, unless they’re for sale.

Crystal’s family got Nathaniel from Midwest Rabbit Rescue and Re-home in Plymouth. He likes kids, loves to be held and can be found lounging around on the shop’s wooden floors, willing to be rousted with a treat of dried cranberries.

And because he looks like a stuffed animal – seriously, he does in real life, too, not just in the photo – Nathaniel fits right in.

See for yourself: Lexi’s Toy Box is located at 328 S. Ashley, and is open Tuesday-Friday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., and on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Closed Sundays and Mondays.