Warehouse Space In Los Angeles

Business sews up a growing, yet green product line

In several ways, Lynn Philpott and Betse Tessman seem a perfect match for their new business model.

For one, it was through Redondo Beach's Port Royal Yacht Club that the two women realized a shared love for the water. As boaters, they'd also grown concerned about the trash they see too often floating around the docks or at sea.

And both South Bay residents grew up sewing - they both made their own prom dresses.

Those commonalities weighed into their decision to launch Re-Sail Bags, a Redondo-based company that got its start several weeks ago in a Francisca Avenue warehouse space. The business recycles used boat sails and canvas boat covers into handmade totes, duffels, backpacks and other bags designed by Philpott and Tessman.

The women also sell a "burrito bag" - which is folded, rolled up and locked into a cylindrical shape with a strip of Velcro - that they market as a replacement for the single-use plastic bags that were banned earlier this month in grocery stores in Marina del Rey, Del Aire, El Camino Village and other unincorporated parts of Los Angeles County.

Depending on the style, Re-Sail bag prices range from $15.95 for the burrito to $85 for a large duffel.

"Every day I walk off the docks and there's garbage floating. There are always plastic bags in the water," said Tessman, 57, who lives aboard a power boat with her husband. "I can't imagine dumping trash into the water."

Philpott, who lives in Torrance and runs an event-planning and organizing business, said she'd been thinking about the prospect of selling bags crafted from the durable - and washable - synthetic fibers used to make boat sails.

Over the years, 57-year-old Philpott, who owns a 32-foot sailboat with her husband, said she'd accumulated a collection of old sails in her garage that were left behind by boater friends who needed space to store them.

She and Tessman got to talking and decided to try cutting them up, creating different patterns, adding accent fabrics and selling them as sacks. They work out of the same warehouse space where Tessman and her husband run another business that repairs canvas boat covers and upholstered cushions.

The concept of turning sails into bags is not new, as evidenced by the number of websites advertising them.

Arizona's status grows as distribution center ...

A new California law that forces out-of-state retailers to collect sales taxes on Internet purchases could have the unintended consequence of chasing businesses and jobs away from that state – and into Arizona.

Real-estate brokers say a number of Internet retailers have bought or leased real estate in the Phoenix area for order-fulfillment and distribution centers, and that California’s so-called “Amazon tax” likely would accelerate that activity.

Amazon.com , which cut ties with its California advertising affiliates after the new law took effect July 1, announced plans Thursday to open a fourth distribution center in the Phoenix area. That center would bring the company’s total warehouse-space usage in the Valley to more than 4 million square feet, roughly equivalent to 17 football fields crammed end zone to end zone with racks of books, DVDs, video games, clothes, toys, appliances and food.

Amazon, the nation’s leading online retailer, said that the planned facility would bring hundreds of jobs to the area.

Most would be relatively low-level positions performing unskilled labor. An even higher percentage would be seasonal, available only during the busy holiday shipping season that lasts from October through January.

Still, those jobs might look appealing to local residents who have been unable to find work in months or even years, economic analysts said.

Amazon.com said its total investment in the Phoenix area would be about $150 million by the time its fourth distribution center opens at 800 N. 75th Ave., expected to sometime in the fall.

In general, most e-commerce providers have chosen not to locate their West Coast distribution centers in California, despite the importance of being able to serve that state’s massive population of affluent and middle-class consumers.

Many Web-based retailers have settled on a two-pronged strategy with order-fulfillment centers in Phoenix, to serve Southern California, and in Reno, to serve Northern California.

Regardless of whether Arizona gains at California’s expense, the new California law is just the latest – and one of the loudest – shots fired in an ongoing nationwide battle over who, if anyone, should collect state sales taxes on Internet purchases.

“It’s a negative for the country and for all of us for California to be losing business,” said Patrick Feeney Jr., senior vice president of industrial properties at CB Richard Ellis in Phoenix, “but it just happens that some of that business is coming to Arizona.

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