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LONG BEACH -- One dozen long-stem red roses in a vase: $15.
A nice seafood meal for two: $14.
A one-pound heart-shaped box of chocolates: $2.50.
One time machine to take you back 30 or 40 years: priceless.
It's not like it used to be. Or is it?
"Back in those days roses were $10 for a dozen, arranged in a vase, and on the holiday it would go up to $15,"
said Rod Johnston, who opened Park Florist in Lakewood 34 years ago.
"And back then people would gripe."
Today and Tuesday, like many of his competitors, Johnston will be selling a dozen long-stem roses for inflated prices between $70 and $90, depending on quality.
The average price paid last year during the days surrounding Valentine's Day for a dozen long-stem roses was $72, according to the Society of American Florists, which estimates that 180 million roses were sold during that period.
That may sound pricey for 12 flowers that will likely wilt less than a week from now.
But not much has changed, considering that $15 in the early 1970s has the same buying power as about $70 today, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator. In other words, prices historically rise on Valentine's Day.
In these two days, the volume of sales at Park Florist will increase dramatically.
"Typically, I may sell two or three dozen roses a day," Johnston said. "That increases to about 100 dozen on the 13th and 100 dozen on the 14th."
With such a high volume, why do florists charge so much?
"After 34 years, I can give the same answer: It's the supply and demand equation. That's the only reason," he said.
Since roses don't grow well in winter, much of the supply is shipped from warmer climes, such as South America, adding to the price.
"We pay triple the normal rate on Valentine's Day," he said. "For the amount of people you have extra, for the extra deliveries and the short amount of time you have to get the job completed in, there's not that much more profit."
Internet shopping
Rod has his eyes on the internet shoppers and had already opened
park-florist.com
a florist and gift shop and rodspecials.com an affiliate marketing web site.
With internet marketing, Rod is hoping to double his profit by next year.
He is working with Elixir Systems, Inc a cerritos based internet consulting
group to setup his online shops and is very happy with their services.
Time to eat
Valentine's Day is also a busy day for restaurants. It's the second most popular day of the year to dine out after Mother's Day, according to the National Restaurant Association.
According to the group, more than one in four Americans dine out on Valentine's Day, and those who do spend an average of $62.
"It's a huge day," said Jeff King, chairman of King's Seafood Co., which operates 13 restaurants from San Diego to Calabasas. "They're all pretty booked up."
King's Fish House locales are offering a dinner for $22, which includes soup or salad and a seafood entree.
"Back in the early 1970s you could get a full dinner for seven bucks, or about $14 for two," King said.
Valentine's Day at Nino's Italian Restaurant has been a special occasion since Vincenco and Inga Cristiano opened the establishment on Atlantic Avenue in 1958.
The restaurant serves a special menu for the evening starting from $13.95 for pasta with garlic bread.
Inga couldn't remember how much the pasta dish cost in the 1970s, but she recalled what she charged back in '58.
"When we opened it was $1.65," she said (that's $11.15 in today's dollars). "Then, you bought a house for $9,000 or $10,000."
Seeing sales
For See's Candies, Valentine's Day is the single largest day of sales, said Dick Van Doren, vice president of marketing for the company.
See's has its U.S. distribution hub in Carson, where millions of pounds of candy are shipped all around the country each year. While the Valentine's Day candy sales place an overall second behind Christmas, Feb. 14 marks the company's largest sales day.
On that day, heart-shaped boxes practically fly out of stores. Roughly 1.2 million of the quarter-pound to 4-pound heart boxes are sold for the holiday, but "at least half are bought on that day," Van Doren said.
"I just think it's the old-fashioned product we have, that image of Mary See in that black-and-white picture of that first store in Los Angeles it takes you back in time," he added.
A 1-pound heart-shaped box is $17.50, up from about $2.50 more than 30 years ago, he said.
That $2.50 equates to roughly $13 today.
Big bucks
The average consumer will spend $100.89 on Valentine's Day, up slightly from $97.27 last year, according to survey issued by the National Retail Federation.
Total 2006 Valentine's Day spending is expected to reach $13.70 billion, up from $13.19 billion in 2005. The average male will spend $135.67, almost double the $68.64 that the average female will spend, according to the survey.
For retailers, the holiday is becoming more significant, said Jack Kyser, chief economist of the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp.
"You generally sense all sectors of the supply chain are cranking it up for Valentine's Day," Kyser said. "Now it's moved beyond the flowers, beyond the cards, beyond candy."
Advertisements for lingerie, spa products and department store sales have flooded airwaves, print and the Internet.
Many ads are touting more non-traditional gifts:
"Turn up the heat this Valentine's Day with a HoMedics HydraGel Infrared Massager," one ad reads. "With its cherry-red exterior, this hand-held massager is the perfect gift for those who don't want to take the traditional candy-and-flowers route. The technologically advanced massager, which retails for $24.99, transfers energy to the massage head and not the handle, while infrared heat stimulates blood circulation."
Love is all around
And when it comes to romance, one of the most non-traditional arenas in which people do battle in love is the workplace, according to a report by an employment consultant.
"The mainstreaming of alternative lifestyles and relationships in media and pop culture is leading to increased acceptance in the workplace," said John A. Challenger, chief executive officer of Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc.
Nearly half of Fortune 500 companies offered domestic partner benefits and 83 percent included sexual orientation in their non-discrimination policies in 2005, up from 40 percent and 64 percent, respectively, in 2003, according to the Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights group.
"We're just seeing more diversity in the workplace, more openness to relationships of different kinds of sexual preference," Challenger said. "As companies have responded to the needs of their employees, it's helped to create more openness."
Other alternative relationships that are emerging in the workplace are those involving people of divergent ages, Challenger said.
As of January 2005, about 46 percent of the nation's employed work force was between ages 25 and 44, and about 41 percent was 45 and older.
This nearly even split is leading to more contact between the young and old, particularly as the number of older workers expands over the next decade, he said.
Don Jergler can be reached at don.jergler@presstelegram.com or (562) 499-1281. | 
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