04/26/04

LC040426

Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --

This two-wheeler could coax commuters out of their cars, so why
is it banned in some cities?

Peter iNova>> I haven't ever heard of an accident where
somebody on a Segway has collided with a pedestrian, for
instance.

Val>> And then, he's a self-made millionaire who made a fortune
by giving folks a bargain. Meet the man behind the 99-Cents
Stores.

These stories and more next on Life and Times.

Life and Times is made possible through the generous support of
the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality
of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of
medicine, health, science and education.

Val>> Hello, I'm Val Zavala reporting from Pasadena where a new
form of transportation has run into a huge pothole. It's a
gadget called the Segway and it was supposed to be the next big
thing, but Pasadena is just one city that is putting some tough
new restrictions on the new high-tech two-wheeler. So what's so
controversial about the Segway? Philip Bruce hits the streets
in search of some answers.

Philip Bruce>> When Joseph Chiu heads to the office each
morning in Pasadena, he always factors in plenty of extra time.
It isn't that he has far to go. It's just that he can't get
there without stopping half a dozen times to chat with the
curious onlookers. Such is life when you glide down the
sidewalk on a Segway.

>> Can you show us how fast it goes?

Joseph Chiu>> Sure. You go over here and back up a little bit
and, see, I just lean forward and you just keep going faster and
faster.

Philip Bruce>> Joseph, a thirty-two year old computer engineer,
has a perfectly good car, but he rarely uses it for his daily
commute. The Segway allows him to breeze along up to twelve
miles an hour, pollution-free and noise-free, and he never has
to worry about parking. He didn't set out to wow his fellow
pedestrians or to draw crowds like some visiting celebrity, but
it sure turned out that way. Is that pretty typical? I mean,
do you get that kind of response a lot?

Joseph Chiu>> Yeah. Well, it's a little different today
because there are a lot of kids and they're actually less shy
about asking questions. Most of the questions I get from adults
are pretty much the questions that they ask.

Philip Bruce>> When a pedestrian sees you on the sidewalk, I
mean, they have questions, but what are they doing? Are they
jumping out of the way? What are they doing?

Joseph Chiu>> It depends. A lot of people just treat me like
someone that's, you know, like someone who's jogging might cause
a person to move a little bit aside, but they don't go
completely out of the way. At the same time, I've also met
people who didn't know what this was and was a little fearful of
it because, you know, they see me on what should be toppling
over from the looks of it.

Philip Bruce>> People gawk at the Segway the way your great-
great-grandmother must have stared at the first horseless
carriage that rolled down Main Street. There's a real joy in
watching it run. And Joseph Chiu is one of a handful of
southern Californians who ponied up the five grand to buy one.

Joseph Chiu>> My birthday was coming up and I said, okay, I'm
going to buy myself a birthday present and I got this and it's
working pretty well.

Philip Bruce>> But regardless of the "gee whiz" factor, new
technology has a way of scaring some people, especially the ones
who can't quite figure out how to regulate it. That's what's
happening now with the Segway in cities and towns across
California. Some have banned it while others have heaped on
heavy restrictions on when and where to use it.

>> Now do you have a brake on there?

Joseph Chiu>> Well, so going forwards and backwards, it's just
adding more speed. Just lean and that's it.

Philip Bruce>> Is Joseph Chiu a pedestrian or a motorist and
are his fancy new wheels a potential safety hazard that must be
controlled? We put those questions to a couple of local lawyers
in Pasadena who've been trained to ponder such weighty issues.

>> As long as you're careful. Whether you're on a bike or
anything, if you're on a public sidewalk, as long as you're
careful, you know, it's no problem. I don't see any problems at
all.

Joseph Chiu>> It looks sort of like a scooter. It's got a
platform and it's got two wheels, but it is definitely a lot
more controllable, a lot more maneuverable. You actually stop
in really short distances.

>> I doubt that in downtown Manhattan you would be able to use
this really efficiently. However, that having been said
(laughter), I can think of places where I have to park a long
way away. If I had one of these, I could get from my car to a
facility or a courthouse.

Philip Bruce>> Joseph admits you could hop onto a Segway and
start running people down just as you could on a bicycle or a
skateboard. But the Segway, which has more built-in computer
power than the rockets NASA sent to the moon, has some built-in
safeguards.

Joseph Chiu>> Especially if I like bump into people, like I'm
going to do this to you right now, I'm going to put all my
weight into it, okay? You can feel my weight. It's like if I'm
pushing with my legs, but it's not like a motorcycle where I
could open the throttle and just knock you over.

Philip Bruce>> But if you whack me at twelve miles an hour --

Joseph Chiu>> -- if I whack you at twelve miles an hour, right,
then that's a problem, but that assumes that I don't see you
while I'm going twelve miles an hour until you suddenly appear
in front of me.

Philip Bruce>> There's nothing like a hands-on ride to turn
even the biggest skeptic into a true believer. Even an old dog
like me can easily learn this new trick.

Joseph Chiu>> Come over here and go ahead and twist it the
other way.

Philip Bruce>> I'll see you later.

Joseph Chiu>> (Laughter) okay. I get that a lot (laughter).

Philip Bruce>> You get the sense that, if every city official
took a spin on a Segway, they'd never try to ban them. In fact,
they might try to ban all the cars and motorcycles and try to
force all of us to commute like this. Are you aware of any bad
accidents on this thing so far?

Peter iNova>> The only accidents I've heard about are people in
training and one accident in May of 2001 where a guy in Atlanta
fell off of his and hurt his knee. I haven't ever heard of an
accident where somebody on a Segway has collided with a
pedestrian, for instance.

Philip Bruce>> Peter iNova not only rides his Segway to work,
he rides it at work. He's a creative director of a media
production company in Burbank. He's also a self-professed
technology nerd, a guy who's written books dissecting and
critiquing the latest gadgets. iNova is writing a book now
about the Segway. He's even got a hard-to-find picture of a
souped-up Segway the Pentagon is allegedly testing as a way to
put foot soldiers on wheels.

Peter iNova>> You'd think something that was so simple looking
on the outside would be simple on the inside, but there is a
huge number of little details and technologies all colliding
together to make this thing work.

Philip Bruce>> Is it a good product?

Peter iNova>> It seems to be an excellent product. They've
gone to extremes to make it safe. The person who's on the
Segway is being balanced by the machine and they're using their
own sense of balance to make it move and respond to the
directions they want to go. The distance and the speed is all
controlled by their own sense of balance, but underneath all of
that, there's a machine that has to figure out how to keep you
from falling over in spite of yourself.

Philip Bruce>> Is there anything to fear about this device?
Peter iNova may not be the most objective source on that, but
from his own research, cops around California aren't the ones
raising the fuss. He says the restrictions are coming mainly
from City Hall types who've never even seen a Segway in person.

Peter iNova>> What I'd like to see people do, like city
governments and that kind of thing, is get one, pass it around
the City Council, everybody gets to know what it's like, take it
home, show the kids, show your parents, all these bits of input,
and then decide.

Philip Bruce>> So far, Joseph Chiu has had only one mishap on
his Segway. He hit an avocado in the driveway just as the lady
next door was saying hello. Joseph dropped like a cowboy thrown
from a feisty bronco. Embarrassing maybe, but not serious. He
only hopes his daily commute won't fall victim to a pile of new
laws at City Hall.

Joseph Chiu>> A hundred years ago, people were talking about
how cars are terrible, dangerous, they'll kill everybody,
they'll scare the horses, they'll cause massive problems in the
cities. Some people will argue that they have (laughter), but
over time, people learned to work within the framework of having
cars around them. People developed rules on how to operate cars
and to be safe with people around them and with other cars. I
think that it will take some time for the same thing to happen
with the Segways.

Val>> You may recall that President Bush took a tumble when he
hopped aboard a Segway during a family gathering, but the
experts say they know what happened. The president forgot to
turn on the switch.

Kcet.org is the place to look for the very latest on Life and
Times. You'll find previews of upcoming stories, transcripts and
audio of past episodes and links to some of our most interesting
features. Just go to kcet.org and click on "Life and Times".

Val>> David Gold is a man who clearly knows the value of a
dollar. His 99-Cents Stores are a fixture across southern
California. They've made him very rich, but you'd never know it
by the way he lives. So what does this self-made millionaire
have to say about California's budget problems? We find out as
Toni Guinyard visits with the merchant who made a fortune by
giving his customers a bargain.

>> "Six-ounce cups for only 99 cents. That's right. Three
cups for only 99 cents. What an unbelievable deal."

Toni Guinyard>> It started with a simple idea. Open a store
and sell everything for under a dollar. The idea was a success.
99-Cents Only stores have become the twenty-first century
version of the five-and-dime with a twist. Name brand items
make up the majority of the stock and nothing in the stores
costs more than 99 cents. The combination of colorful displays,
bargain prices and familiar brands has proven to be an
attractive lure for shoppers during tough economic times.

Dahlia Ramo>> Well, my husband and I are retired. We're on a
fixed income, so I'm very cognizant of prices, even more so. I
have eight grandchildren that visit me all the time and I buy
baby wipes, I buy everything. If I go to the stores in my area,
I'm paying three, four or five dollars for one item that I can
get here for 99 cents.

David Gold>> Nothing is a bargain unless it has quality,
nothing is a bargain. So if you put something out for five for
99 cents, if it's not quality, it's worthless.

Toni Guinyard>> David Gold is founder and CEO of the 99-Cents
Only stores. He's credited with pioneering the single-price
store concept, an idea saving customers money and landing him on
a spot of the 2002 Forbes 400 list of richest Americans. This
idea has made you essentially a very rich man.

David Gold>> Well, you're rich if you have a good family. We
basically live in the same house. We do not drive expensive
cars. We're fortunate that everybody in the company does have
stock options, even the people that bag the grocery items or
stock the shelves or if they drive the truck. They all have
stock options.

Toni Guinyard>> In his world, success means buying items at a
bargain price and passing on the savings. The challenge?
Getting shoppers to believe that, just because the merchandise
is inexpensive, doesn't mean it's cheaply made.

David Gold>> There are people that believe that the more you
pay for something, it's necessarily better. Sometimes it's
true, but in most cases it isn't.

Marina Apodaca>> They seem to think they're better than anybody
else, I think (laughter). I have a nephew that thinks exactly
like that, you know. He says I wouldn't be seen in a store like
that. He says I don't want people to think I can't afford
anything better than 99 cents, and I don't feel that way. I'm
very different. I mean, I don't have the money and, if I had
it, I still would not pay more money for it if I could get it
for less.

Toni Guinyard>> Bargain hunters say the economy and their
budgets play into their decisions to shop here. Consider this:
the average shopper spends just over nine dollars every time
they visit.

Mel Strauss>> In this store, you can just go around, you can
find things that you would never buy or you'd never leave your
house to buy. I can talk to people at that stand and they'd say
the same thing. They'll say I came in to spend a couple of
dollars to get two items, but because it is a dollar, you have a
tendency to go on and on.

Toni Guinyard>> With more than 160 stores in California,
Arizona, Nevada and Texas, the small sales add up. Each store
averages more than four million dollars in sales each year and,
with an increasing number of customers on tight budgets, the
company's growth has in many ways become a barometer of economic
times.

David Gold>> When we first started out in 1982, there was
around fifteen or sixteen percent as the prime rate and the
economy was really bad, but inflation was tremendous. What
happened, we did good in those times. Then when the economy got
good, we did good in those times. We also do good in recession.
We're kind of recession-proof.

Toni Guinyard>> The company often relies on successes and
mistakes of other businesses.

David Gold>> In the bad times, they just want to turn over that
merchandise and get rid of it. And in good times, they're
making so much money, they like to give good values just to get
rid of something that they don't want to handle anymore.

Rachel Jacobs>> From working at the company, the type of
products that constantly are changing, packaging, sizes,
customers that buy too much and the manufacturer has to take the
product back. There's a tremendous amount of this going on on a
daily basis and they have to do something with the product. So
they either have to dispose of it, donate it or they can sell it
to us and at least recoup a portion of their cost, so many
companies choose to sell it to us.

Toni Guinyard>> And in turn, those products are sold to you.
What may not sell well at a regular market can usually sell here
at a deeply discounted price. The company expanded in-store
stock to include bridal and gourmet food sections, but some
items found in one store may not be stocked in another.

Albert Lee>> What we try to is try to give a lot of latitude to
the managers to be able to select those key products that they
think would be most effective in those stores. If it's, say, a
more ethnic community, then we want to have more ethnic products
in that particular store, so that way we are catering to that
specific community.

Toni Guinyard>> Buyers are given flexibility in purchasing what
they believe the customer wants.

Rachel Jacobs>> One of the really good deals we got was a
hundred trucks of Minute-Maid Disney Extreme Coolers and they
are 64-ounce juices, all different flavors, and the Disney
license in that item did not perform that well, so they had a
ton of overproduction, overstock of this product, so we bought
everything they had because they're going to be discontinuing
that product.

Toni Guinyard>> Sometimes mistakes are made.

David Gold>> If they don't make mistakes, they won't take
chances and, in most cases, we don't.

Toni Guinyard>> Gold makes a point of not wasting money. The
company headquarters is located next to the company warehouse in
an industrial area in the city of Commerce. When asked about
the economic climate in California, Gold quickly applies his no-
frills business philosophy.

David Gold>> I think we have a desperate situation in the state
of California, but I think they got to practice what they
preach. Just because they practice, they got to watch spending.
They got to watch spending. They got to set the example. In
our company, we hope we set the example. No one has a
secretary, no one has a private parking space and we're all the
same.

Toni Guinyard>> This from a man who has made millions from the
pennies spent by 99-Cents Only store customers.

David Gold>> I think what happens if you attain a lot of money
and you change your life, they say the money affects you. And
if it doesn't change your life, they call you a schmoe, so
that's probably what I am. But basically we just conserve what
we do. 99 thanks (laughter).

Val>> By the way, if you're wondering whether the well-to-do
ever shop at the 99-Cents stores, just sit outside one and watch
the steady stream of luxury cars that stop out front. In fact,
the most profitable location in the 99-Cents store chain is the
one near Beverly Hills.

To send a comment or a question to our program, you can reach us
by mail at this address:

Life and Times
4401 Sunset Blvd.
Los Angeles, California 90027

You can also call our viewer comment line (323) 953-5555) or
contact us the fast way by e-mail at kcet.org.

Val>> We all know that one person's trash may be another
person's treasure, but you're about to meet a man who applied
this same principle to a patch of earth in Hollywood. To most
people, it was just a seedy vacant lot, but to Jose Luis
Hernandez, it has all the makings of a garden paradise.

Not all of Hollywood Boulevard is shiny and new. There are
still shabby parts untouched by revitalization. But now a
Mexican immigrant working alone has created an oasis on one of
the boulevard's grittier stretches. Leave the street and you
suddenly find yourself inside his dream. A formerly abandoned
lot is now a whimsical visual feast, a celebration of Mayan and
Aztec culture and imagination.

[Film Clip]

Jose Luis Hernandez>> My name is Jose Luis Hernandez. I was
born in a little town in Mexico. I was born seventy-one years
ago. I come here to United States thirty-five years ago. The
first time, I stay in Baldwin Park. Twenty years I moved to
Santa Barbara. Over there I make big fountains. People like
fountains, so I make the big ones, the small ones. I make
columns, benches, parks, sculpture. A lot of the people have
mansions over there. Pretty good, but when I stay over there, I
don't have no family, so I go to the beach by myself, to the
library. That's when I decide to move over here.

So I come to Hollywood Boulevard and I see the place. Oh, this
is nice to make it my idea and I started bringing my pieces and
started cleaning and put it together, everything set up and I'm
here (laughter). Companies for movie stars rent props. People
come and make photographs, videos. Groups of people come and
read the bible (inaudible).

Val>> But Jose Luis Hernandez wants something more. His dream
is to create a space where the community can enjoy performance
as well as art.

Jose Luis Hernandez>> My main idea is to make one place from
the Aztecs and the Mayans because you see a lot of culture from
there and other parts of the world, Hawaiian, Chinese. You see
many places, but you don't see too many from Mexico. I want to
put lights, I want to put special effects. I like to make
cascade, waterfalls, flowers.

Val>> Jose Luis says his rent here -- he pays $400 a month --
is low because he's improving the property. It took him half a
year just to clear the land.

Jose Luis Hernandez>> When I come here, the grass comes too
high. Furniture, cars, hills, holes, so I work maybe six months
day and night (laughter). Put it level, put in water, clean and
I told the homeless guys to please go outside. But now the
people like it.

Val>> Some days, Jose Luis works on the garden. His banana
trees are already thriving. Other days he devotes to his
sculpture. They may look heavy, but actually they're feather-
light.

Jose Luis Hernandez>> Now I make foam for now because it's
Hollywood. People from the movies come and rent from me or I
use in festivals, maybe a float for the parade, so I can move
it. So I make it not heavy. When I was young, I helped my
father and my grandpa. My grandpa and my father carved the
stones in the churches. I'm a little kid and they say, come on,
help me. I don't stay too much in the schools. Just the sixth
grade (laughter), and instead work and work and work. I never
make any sport, only working.

Val>> Jose Luis says he was well-paid in Santa Barbara, but he
retired five years ago. He now lives on Social Security, plus a
little money he makes renting or, less often, selling his
sculptures. He has a room in a friend's apartment, showers at
the YMCA, and eats in the neighborhood restaurants, but mostly
he's here. His living room inside a shed has a comfortable
couch, books and a TV.

Jose Luis Hernandez>> I supposed to make a lot of money because
I make wood ornaments for a garden. I can fix restaurants,
hotels, with my pieces, make a nice ornament, but I don't want
to sell the pieces. I want to continue to make a collection and
decided to make it a park. But I don't feel good when I sell
one piece because I want to collect for my idea.

Val>> Jose Luis tells his story often. He likes visitors and
wants more people to know what he's trying to do, but he worries
that one day the property will be sold and he'll have to leave.
He clings to the hope that a benefactor, or maybe the city, will
help him carry on what he started.

Jose Luis Hernandez>> I don't have no money to buy this land.
Maybe sometime one rich person come and say, okay, I will buy
this, or maybe the city, I don't know.

Val>> In the meantime, he says, he lives in the moment. What
might happen in the future doesn't keep him from chasing his
dream here and now.

Jose Luis Hernandez>> Wow (laughter). Lot of work, but I don't
care. I feel good and I make sacrifice. I'm happy with it,
things that I do in my life. I'm not rich, never rich, but I do
what I like.

Val>> At one point, it looked as though the city was going to
put a fire station on the vacant lot, but those plans fell
through, clearing the way for that unexpected patch of green in
the middle of Hollywood. And that's our program. I'm Val
Zavala. For all of us at Life and Times, thanks for watching.

Life and Times was made possible through the generous support of
the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality
of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of
medicine, health, science and education.

Val>> Next time on Life and Times, it's a long way from head
shots to head of the class, so how do you get there without
going back to school?

>> I've been an actor and a general contractor. That's what
was on my resume. I thought they're not going to hire me.
Yeah, this is silly. But they were looking more for, you know,
the whole person.

Val>> That's next time on Life and Times.