LAKEVIEW — Start saving your receipts, Lakeviewers. From November through New Year's Eve, the Lakeview Chamber of Commerce is sponsoring the seventh annual Shop Lakeview, a program aimed at getting residents to stay and shop in the neighborhood.
It's simple: Spend $300 at at least five of the nearly 100 participating merchants, and send the receipts to the chamber of commerce. They'll send 50 Lakeview dollars — in the form of two $25 gift cards — which customers can use at any of the participating merchants. Not just for holiday gift shopping, Shop Lakeview merchants include salons, restaurants, coffee shops, fitness centers (including yoga and pilates), wine shops and even Quiroga's Car Wash.
"We want to encourage people to shop locally," said Heather Way, executive director of the Lakeview Chamber of Commerce. "We want people to get out and not do all of their holiday shopping online, and not order everything off Amazon.com."
Way said the program had been successful over the past seven years in driving the local economy, and spawning increased spending around the holidays. Way said last year, the chamber was responsible for $50,000 in disbursements — which they sent to the shoppers in two $25 gift cards that could be spent from Jan. 1 to Feb. 28, the two slowest spending months of the year.
"That means about $500,000 was spent locally last year," said Way. "That's a lot of shopping locally."
