Seattle's Tully's Coffee Corp. has sold its wholesale and supply chain business to Waterbury, Vermont's Green Mountain Coffee Roasters in a $40.3 million deal.

Tully's executives and shareholders will continue to operate the chain's retail business domestically and internationally.

The deal gives Tully's shareholders a chance to cash in on its wholesale and supply business while maintaining the company's retail presence, the company said.

Tully's wholesale business distributes coffees and related items to more than 5,000 supermarket and food distributors throughout the West.

The purchase gives Green Mountain a presence it had sought in the West.

Green Mountain will continue to operate Tully's landmark roasting plant in the old Rainier Brewery south of downtown Seattle just west of Interstate 5 under a lease with Tully's.

United Airlines is raising the fee for checking a second bag from $25 to $50 effective Nov. 10.

The new charge is effective for flying beginning that day on tickets bought Tuesday or later, the airline announced today.

The airline, which pioneered the $15 charge for the first checked bag, said the new fee is designed to generate additional cash to help the airline pay its fuel bills.

On a roundtrip with two checked bags, that means a traveler could pay $130 for the privilege of checking two suitcases.

Most major domestic carriers now charge $25 for the second checked bag and $15 for the first.

Southwest Airlines remains the lone major holdout. It charges for neither the first nor the second checked bag.

SeaTac's Alaska Airlines, the dominant carrier at Sea-Tac Airport, charges $25 for the second bag, but has no charge for the first.

Frozen yogurt retailer Tutti Frutti and premium cosmetics company Bare Escentuals will join the repertoire of retailers at Tacoma Mall this fall, the mall announced today.

Tutti Frutti, a company with locations throughout the country and in Taiwan and Vietnam, will open its second Washington location at the Tacoma Mall in November.

Bare Escentuals, which specializes in mineral-based cosmetics, will open its third Washington location near Macy's in the mall that same month.

The opening of those two new stores will follow the public debut of the mall's new lifestyle center and its new Nordstrom department store on the mall's west end Oct. 4.

The mall has previously announced the opening of four other new retailers, Coldwater Creek, The Walking Co., BOSE and AT&T. BJ's Restaurant and Brewhouse is due to open in mid-October.

Three additional retailers, whose identities are still a secret, will be announced soon, the Mall said.

Hurricane Ike's temporary disruption of gasoline supplies in Texas and in the Gulf of Mexico sent national average gas prices bumping upward over the weekend.

But prices here in Washington, where our gasoline comes largely from local refineries and Alaskan crude oil sources, remained stable.

That stability combined with the rise elsewhere put Washington average prices below the nation's for the first time in months.

Nationwide, regular gas prices averaged $3.842 today, reported AAA Washington. That's up from a Sunday price of $3.795.

In Washington, regular was selling today for an average of $3.807, down from $3.811 on Sunday, AAA reported.

In Tacoma, prices were even lower. AAA reported Tacoma average prices were $3.759 today, up slightly from Sunday's $3.755.

Tacomagasprices.com reported eight stations, seven ARCOs and one Costco, selling gas locally for $3.55 a gallon.

News Tribune subscribers who read today's business page interview with the Allenmore Hospital's new administrator, Elise Fornadley, may want to see some of the hospital's improvements first hand.

Here's your chance: Allenmore is holding an open house Sunday, Oct. 5 from noon to 3 p.m. at the hospital at South 19th Street and Union Avenue.

Besides the chance to see the remodeled facilities, the hospital is offering bone density, lipid, glucose and blood pressure screenings, said hospital spokesman Todd Kelley.

Anyone, not just News Tribune readers, is welcome.

Continental Airlines flights between Sea-Tac and Houston, canceled over the weekend because of Hurricane Ike, began phasing in again this morning.

Two of the four Continental early morning flights from Sea-Tac to Continental's Texas hub at George Bush Intercontinental Airport were flying on schedule this morning, reported Portland's Flightstats.com.

The 6:05 a.m. and 8:20 a.m. flights were listed as canceled while the 6:30 a.m. and 7:10 a.m. flights were reported to be operating as normal.

Flights for the rest of the day were reported as operating normally.

Meanwhile, Southwest Airlines, which serves Houston's Hobby Airport, said it won't resume flights there until Tuesday.

Southwest doesn't have non-stop flights from Sea-Tac to Houston but serves the airport with intermediate stops.

Houston Bush is Continental's largest hub, so many passengers on that airline destined for other cities may find their flights disrupted because the Houston leg of their flight is not yet restored.

Continental is allowing passengers to change reservations without penalties if their flights were affected by the storm. See its Web page at www.continental.com.