Brides
Several complaints about downtown Coral Gables being chock-full of bridal shops brought this little story to mind:
Las Tunas Avenue (silly name, no?) in Temple City, Calif. is lined with Asian bridal shops with cheesy names like Love City. The Anglo neighbors began to get suspicious of drug fronts, not unexpectedly wondering where exactly the demand for bridal gowns was coming from.
What was happening, of course, was just a natural aggregation of businesses: the inevitable intersection of a young and growing immigrant population (many of whom spend quite lavishly on weddings) with time-pressed young brides who like to spend a lot of time comparison shopping. As word of the bridal shops began spreading, more began opening to cash in on the trend. And since bridal boutiques run high margins on low volume (and often do “house calls”), they appear to be “suspiciously” low on customers.
