Nevada

Joe Keenan is the executive editor of Total Retail. Joe has more than 10 years experience covering the retail industry, and enjoys profiling innovative companies and people in the space.

Jesse Busk spent a 12-hour shift rushing inventory through an Amazon.com warehouse in Nevada to meet quotas. His day wasn't over, though. After clocking out, Busk and hundreds of other workers went through an airport-style screening process, including metal detectors, to make sure they weren't stealing from the web retailer. Getting through the line often took as long as 25 minutes, uncompensated, he and others employed there say.

Sport Chalet is being acquired by a company that owns Eastern Mountain Sports and Bob's Stores. Sport Chalet, with 50 stores in the U.S. western states of California, Nevada, Utah and Arizona, announced it was looking for potential partnerships and/or investors last year as the retailer set to expand its technological strategies. Under the agreement, Sport Chalet will keep its stores open and keep its name. Sport Chalet CEO Craig Levra will continue to manage the business out of Los Angeles, the companies said.

He's a painfully private entrepreneur with very public dreams for this city's decaying downtown core. Around Sin City, giddy officials are heralding online shoe retailer Tony Hsieh as a visionary, the latest in a line of moneyed Las Vegas dreamers such as billionaire Howard Hughes and casino mogul Steve Wynn. Mayor Carolyn Goodman says Hsieh is offering people a chance to open their dream businesses, and "that can't be bad." 

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