Red Ticket Raffle Offers $3,000 Prize

By Sue Pascoe, Staff Writer

2009-11-19
One lucky Pacific Palisades shopper will win $3,000 simply by patronizing local businesses that are participating in the Red Ticket Raffle, today through December 23 at 5 p.m. The Pacific Palisades Merchant Committee has organized this new promotion to encourage local shopping this holiday season.

  For every $25 spent with a participating business, shoppers will receive a raffle ticket that they can enter in a drawing for $3,000. Tickets are deposited in the red box at the participating store, and will later be combined for a drawing at the Chamber of Commerce office on December 24 at 10 a.m.

  Employees of a business may participate only when making purchases at other stores, not at the place that they're employed.

  Customers should look for the contest poster in the front window of participating stores, said Susan Carroll, owner of Gift Garden Antiques on Antioch Street and chairperson of the holiday promotion. She explained that tickets will be numbered and a set group will be assigned to every store, to ensure that rules are followed.

  'We are the face of the Palisades business community to residents,' Carroll told merchants at a November 11 committee meeting, and she urged them to consider other ways of enticing shoppers in addition to the Red Ticket Raffle.

  Several merchants suggested having one night a week when participating businesses stay open later. Another storeowner suggested patterning Abbot Kinney Boulevard in Venice, which has a party-like atmosphere the first Friday of every month, with stores staying open later.

  Given the time constraints to organize an event in December, participants agreed that the spring would be a good time to host an evening event.

  Carroll noted that she has adopted a new closing policy that ignores her store's stated closing time: 'If people are in the store, we don't close.'

  For more information, call the Chamber at (310) 459-7963.