Tampa Bay Times from St. Petersburg, Florida • 47

6E TIMES WEDNESDAY, MAY 24, 1995 Sweet 5 area Phar-Mors to liquidate from 1E The chain's bankruptcy plan is approved, clearing the way for the stores to close in about two months. By MARK ALBRIGHT Times Staff Writer companies to handle the liquidation sale, but company spokesman Gary Holmes said merchandise will be marked down progressively over six to eight weeks until there is nothing left. The stores being closed are at 1200 Missouri Ave. and 26209 U.S. 19 in Clearwater, 5450 Busch Blvd.

in Temple Terrace, 2564 Brandon Blvd. in Brandon, and 9570 U.S. 19 in Port Richey. Pinellas Park-based HBA Distributors owners of Joel n' Jerry's discount drugs, had negotiated to acquire all Florida Phar-Mor stores, including the one in St. Petersburg that will remain open, but the deal collapsed when Phar-Mor said its creditors could not accept the terms.

Phar-Mor is closing the stores as part of a plan to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The company sought protection from creditors after its co-founder and two former top executives were charged with looting hundreds of millions of dollars from the company treasury for their own use. Liquidation sales begin in a few days at five Tampa Bay area Phar-Mor stores after a federal bankruptcy judge Tuesday approved a plan to close 41 stores in 13 states. About 250 employees will lose their jobs when the stores close for good in about two months. One Phar-Mor will survive in the region, a profitable store at 4460 66th St.

in St. Petersburg. Phar-Mor owns the store. The others are rented under leases the bankruptcy judge voided Tuesday. On Tuesday, the company was still interviewing pastries and desserts.

But Jeff has given his desserts top billing over the high-octane coffee. And he rotates in new taste sensations such as Fresh Fruit Flan, Palatial Orgasm and Chocolate Nuclear Meltdown to keep the menu jazzed up. A born "cake eater," Givens and his younger brother Marty were the sort of kids who stuffed themselves with pastries on the way home from school. Marty became an Italian-trained pastry chef, and Jeff gave up a public relations career to save the business. "He's a temperamental artist," said Jeff.

"He'd yell and scream even at the customers. He'd throw cakes out that didn't come out perfect. I came in and set up a wholesale business, then the retail business. Now he's learned the customer comes first. We've done well." Indeed, 15 years later, the average Jeffs Desserts store generates $1 -million a year in sales.

Jeff Givens blows off steam tooling the back roads in one of his two custom-painted Harley-David-son motorcycles. He spends time combing the Ontario countryside, wife and five kids in tow, in search of recipes and new additions to his huge antique cookie jar collection. "I traded for one woman's old family recipe for sour cream apple pie," he recalled. "It cost me three of my best recipes." were always dropping by Givens' places in Toronto for inspiration. The Fortunes hope to save on their overhead by baking all the desserts in the TradeWinds kitchen.

But their real estate strategy, which revolves around finding upper-middle-income neighborhoods and lots of lingering pedestrian traffic, promises to be crucial. Unlike dense-packed, cosmopolitan Toronto, Tampa Bay is mostly suburban sprawl. That means there are few compact neighborhood spots beyond pricey malls where lots of pedestrians gather day and night. The first Jeffs Desserts opens June 7 in Lighthouse Shopping Center, next to an Outback Steak-house in west St. Petersburg.

A second arrives in downtown St. Petersburg in late June. Both will be open from 7 a.m. until 1 a.m. during the week.

On weekends, the doors close at 3 a.m. Customers will find an array of 35 desserts priced at $3.25 to $5.95. The average tab with coffee is $5.50. Or you can take home the pie or cake of your choice at prices ranging from $30 to $60. Jeffs will not find an empty playing field.

Many local gourmet coffee bars Joffrey's Coffee Tea and Zudar's Bay City Cafe in Tampa, Cafe Classique in Palm Harbor to name a few now come armed with sinfully rich, fresh desserts the way mom used to make 'em. You know mom; she wouldn't add fillers or skimp on the ingredients," said Givens, who waxes so intensely about his rich, creamy confections that it's hard to separate his passion for sweets from his permanent sugar high. Few coffee bars offer much more than muffins and bagels. Pastries that qualify as dessert in hotels and restaurants are often just pricey concoctions cooked up and flash-frozen by Sara Lee. In contrast, Givens' dozens of pies and cakes are all made from scratch.

Most come laced, covered or smeared with rich creams, meringues or imported melt-in-your-mouth chocolates. And some, like a blueberry yogurt cheesecake, take two days to whip up. "It's so fresh that it's usually still warm by the time it arrives at the store," said Tom Barney, chief operating officer of the state's first Jeff's Desserts franchise, which has been purchased by the Fortune family, operators of the Trade-Winds Resort in St. Pete Beach. Barney, who linked up the Fortunes with Givens, first met the dessert maven through a former job as food and beverage manager at the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, NJ.

Barney's pastry chefs Dillard votes down request on hiring Three religious groups wanted the retailer to give a report on minority hiring and purchasing practices. Knight-Rldder Tribune Business Newi Kmart from 1E Stockholders seeking the report were the School Sisters of St. Province in Milwaukee, with 5,300 shares of common stock; the Domini Social Equity Fund of Boston, 2,200 shares; and the Church of the Brethren General Board in Elgin, 111., 500 shares. The Southwest region of the NAACP said last week that Dillard had resisted releasing the information because the company could not defend its record. Dillard said "the percentages don't look bad" concerning minority employment within the company's management ranks.

The NAACP and the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, a community activist group, have questioned Dillard's minority hiring and purchasing record. "Nobody likes bad publicity," Dillard said Saturday. He said the retailer could not control those who would take information "and interpret it to their point of view." The only black on Dillard's board of directors, John H. Johnson, president of Johnson Publishing Co. Inc.

of Chicago, whose publications include Ebony magazine, declined to comment on the proposal after the shareholders' meeting. Another board member, former Arkansas Republican Rep. John Paul Hammerschmidt, said Johnson voted against the proposal. He declined to comment further. LITTLE ROCK, Ark.

Shareholders of Dillard Department Stores Inc. have voted down a proposal that asked for a public report on the retail chain's hiring of minorities and women and its purchasing practices. More than 88 percent of the shareholders who voted Saturday decided against the proposal by three religious groups that hold stock in Little Rock-based Dillard, officials said at the company's annual meeting. "The information the proponents seek is sensitive and potentially susceptible to misinterpretation by persons who may, for whatever reason, be interested in distracting management or initiating unfounded legal action," the board said in the company's proxy statement. William Dillard II, president and chief operating officer, said after the meeting that the company had "excellent compliance" with state and federal employment opportunity laws.

He said that similar proposals had surfaced previously and that such efforts would probably reappear. "We'll have to vote on it forever," Dillard said. poorly staffed and stocked stores, low pay and poor worker morale, even trashed parking lots and shabby landscaping. Several shareholders criticized the severance package Antonini received, which could reach up to in the next two years. "Seems like you gave him a Brink's truck," said John Carruth-ers, a Kmart employee and shareholder.

Information from the Associated Press was used in this report. let go nationwide as part of a restructuring that included 120 store closures or relocations. Major stakes in several profitable subsidiaries were sold to raise cash, chief executive officer Joseph Antonini was forced out in March, Kmart's dividend was cut in half, and the company recently reported a $28-million loss for the first quarter. Many in the audience remained unconvinced that Kmart is on its way to competing successfully with rivals such as Wal-Mart and Target. They complained about part of the company's heritage as the first nationwide U.S.

discount chain. "There's no shame in where we came from," she said. Word of the return of the blue light special came as Kmart chairman Donald Perkins, presiding over his first annual meeting, tried to reassure shareholders and employees that recent steps will turn the beleaguered company around. But Perkins ruefully acknowledged that Kmart's toughest sell these days is persuading someone to become its chief executive. "My target was today, and I didn't make it," he said.

"We've talked to a lot of people who say they're not interested." In predicting a better future for Kmart, Perkins pointed to major cost-cutting moves, a new management team, new employee incentives and a renewed focus on Kmart's core discount stores. He promised shareholders and employees "more change is on the way." The past year had been extraordinarily painful for Kmart. More than 7.000 employees were It's for you! Sprint's low, flat rates for small businesses. Scam from 1E I Is i 9 Thanks to Sprint Business, now the world is flat. Introducing low, flat rates on your long distance services.

That includes all your statc-to-state calls, as well as Sprint 800 service, fax, cellular long distance and calling cards. You pay the same low rate Raymond James defended Boksen and said he and the brokerage firm were both victims of fraud. Boksen is now a money manager with Eagle Asset Management a subsidiary of Raymond James Financial Inc. In the indictment that was unsealed Tuesday, authorities said that Cascade's fictitious sales and stock manipulations depended on help from a crooked chief financial officer, accountant and broker. The indictment charged that: CFO John Sirmans, who served as president after Incendy's disappearance until he was ousted by a bankruptcy judge, submitted false documents to the SEC.

New York accountant Bernard Levy, a longtime friend of Incendy, collected up to $150,000 a year plus stock for concocting Cascade's financial statements as its outside auditor. Rodney Hedges, a broker with firms in Salt Lake City and Santa Rosa, took at least $600,000 in kickbacks for opening accounts to sell Cascade stock benefiting Incendy and Van Zanten. Van Zanten spent part of her time hiding in the Netherlands, U.S. authorities said. They received a tip about her from sources in the Netherlands, said Neil Kar-adbil, chief of the U.S.

attorney's economic crimes section in West Palm Beach. She then lived under the name Jeannette Beatrix Nelisse in the affluent Palm Beach County bedroom community of Tequesta. State records indicate a driver's license under the Nelisse name and Tequesta address was obtained in December 1993. Under the indictment, Incendy faces 110 counts, Van Zanten 92 counts, Hedges 60 counts, Sir-mans 52 counts and Levy 33 counts. Prosecutors expected Hedges, 46, Sirmans, 51, and Levy, 61, to surrender for court appearances next week.

If convicted, each could face several hundred years in prison plus millions in fines and forfeitures. Staff writer Helen Huntley contributed to this repjt. whenever you call. Day or night. Weekdays or weekends.

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