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Luxury chocolatier Godiva is getting out of the brick and mortar business. The company is closing or selling all 128 of its brick-and-mortar stores in North America, it announced in a statement. It plans to complete the closures and sales by the end of March. Godiva will keep its stores open across Europe, Middle East and Greater China. The company did not disclose information on how many employees would be let go because of the closures. Less than two years ago, Godiva was planning a massive expansion by getting into the cafe business. The chocolatier opened its first cafe in...

An off-duty NYPD officer went berserk in a Godiva store when she was told they were closing — even fighting police who responded to the call, cops said. Officer Amanda Villafane went to the store at the Stamford Town Center with her mother and Christopher Salvadore, 32, around 6 p.m. Sunday, police said. “They were told the store was closing,” Stamford Police Sgt. Brian Butler said. “They were not happy with that answer.”

(MOUNT LAUREL, N.J.)--Campbell Soup Co. is putting Godiva up for sale, saying the decadent Belgium chocolate does not fit with the company's focus on healthy, down-home foods. The Camden-based company announced Thursday that it has hired Centerview Partners LLC to advise it on what to do with Godiva Chocolatier, which the company has owned for more than 40 years, but says has never fit squarely into any of its main business units. Analyst Mitch Pinheiro, who follows the company for Janney Montgomery Scott, said the company would need to get around $900 million for Godiva to avoid diluting earnings. Pinheiro...

March 14, 2007 -- HOW is Sen. Hillary Clinton like Lady Godiva, the Anglo-Saxon noblewoman who rode naked through the streets of Coventry, England, in the 11th century? That's what we wanted to know when the weekly newspaper City Hall - which asked various pundits to supply nicknames for local presidential candidates Clinton and Rudy Giuliani - quoted Ed Koch as saying, "I'd give Giuliani 'Inspector Javert' and Hillary 'Lady Godiva.' " Javert was the ruthless prosecutor in "Les Miserables." Godiva, the history books say, did her nude equestrian show to lower taxes on her husband's starving subjects, and Hillary...