“If it wasn?t for bad luck, I wouldn?t have no luck at all,” is an often used phrase. Fortunately for Baltimore residents, you can buy a little luck if you?re running low.
A small but thriving “luck” industry inhabits the thoroughfares and side streets surrounding Lexington market in downtown Baltimore. Known as “candle shops” to some and “root stores” to others, these quirky establishments are chock full of oils to keep the police away, books full of lucky numbers for erstwhile lottery players and candles that you burn to cleanse “negative” luck, in short, everything you need to beat the odds.
“It?s all about the luck baby,” said Doretha Parker, 65. “I buy the books because I play the lottery,” she said, standing in Old Grandpa?s Candle Shop, a Saratoga street fixture for more 35 years.
Old Grandpa?s owner Ted Perry, 46, said that people come from all across the city to pick up luck oil or candles.
“We sell to people from all walks of life,” he said.
Perry, who took over the store after his father, Phil Perry, died, said that demand for the five varieties of “Grandpa?s” lottery books that he publishes is not just a local phenomena, but nationwide.
“We just set up a Web site and we get 11,000 hits a day,” Perry said.
At Jericho Candle and Herbs, a few blocks over on Green Street, the hardwood floors and barrels of fresh herbs give the store an old-school mystic atmosphere.
“We?ve been here since 1920,” said a woman behind the counter who would only identify herself as Mary. She said that many of the good luck oils that the store sells were developed in house by the store?s deceased founder, a “scientist and a chemist.”
“All of our oils are made by us,” Mary said.
Some of the more interesting products the store sells includes Gamblers Spray, an aerosol concoction for freshening up the room before your next poker game, Double Fast Luck soap, and a Buckeye, a small oblong-shaped stone that when rubbed between the fingers will supposedly make a slot machine friendlier. Of course, Mary advises that the products she sells are not for skeptics.
“It only works if you believe in it,” she said.
