After being raised in Arcadia and continuing to make her home here, Mary Werner has decided this is where she also wants to run a business, at least one of her businesses.
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Get the Flash Player to see this content. . In early 2008 Mary opened her first business with partner Althea McCollum called Studio Floral Productions in Los Angeles, capitalizing on her skill at catering to the specialty floral needs of movie and TV production companies to have flower arrangements that look identical from any camera angle.
But when 85-year-old hometown Ralph’s Florist became available earlier this year, Mary and Althea couldn’t pass it up. Her parents had been business neighbors to the florist shop at 109 S. First Ave. and Mary had become friends with owner Allen Yack, who has long run the business started by his parents Ralph and Mary in 1925.
The two connected and completed the transaction in 3 1/2 weeks, she told ArcadiasBest.com after a ribbon-cutting ceremony by the Arcadia Chamber of Commerce on Aug. 31.
Mary says there will be few changes at Ralph’s Florist and that her two shops will complement each other nicely since there are many periods when TV series go on hiatus.
— By Scott Hettrick