'Cash mob' sets sights on Lou's Records

This week, CityBeat's cover story is about Sam Goody, a corporate-owned music store at Horton Plaza that's curiously managed to survive the drastic decline of CD sales during the past decade. While the rise of iTunes has helped bring about the end of Tower Records, Borders and other chain stores, business has been going steady at Sam Goody, managers say.

But the same can't be said for Lou's Records, an iconic record store in Leucadia that's fallen on hard times in recent years. As CityBeat contributor Seth Combs reported in February, owner Lou Russell has had to shut down two of the store's three contiguous shops, drastically reducing its once-enormous inventory of CDs, vinyl, turntables and T-shirts.

“We’re just trying to survive,” Russell told Combs. “We’re in a battle. And it’s a battle for our business lives.”

This holiday season, however, a surprise is being planned for the record store. In the spirit of Occupy Wall Street, DJ and promoter Beau Doiron is mobilizing a "cash mob" of shoppers to set upon Lou's to get their holiday shopping done en masse. More than 1,000 people have been invited via Facebook to join the mob, which goes down on Friday, Dec. 16. 

As the Facebook invite says, it's all part of an effort to support local businesses instead of corporate-owned chain stores:

Significantly more money re-circulates when purchases are made at locally owned, rather than nationally owned, businesses: More money is kept in the community because locally owned businesses purchase from other local businesses, service providers and farms. Purchasing locally helps grow other businesses as well as the San Diego tax base.