Marin retail sales best in four years

Retail sales are surging back as customers across the nation head to the malls and exercise all the pent-up spending energy they've been accumulating during the recession.

For Marin retailers, this has been the best retail sales period for many years. The 1% retail sales tax distributed to cities in Marin in December (the purple line on the chart below) was over $3 million, a 10.7% increase over 2009 AND it was above both the 2008 and 2007 totals for the same month.

So is this the start of a new era of prosperity - or a blip in an otherwise unimpressive year?