The number of the day is $125 million. No, it only seems like the price of a dozen roses for those of us just now remembering that today is Valentine’s Day.

Instead, a new state report indicates $125 million is the amount of taxable sales that occurred in Lawrence during the heart of the Christmas shopping season. That means Lawrence retailers had a pretty fair Christmas season

The latest sales tax report measures sales for the period of mid-November to mid-December. The $125 million in sales is up about 5 percent from the same period a year ago.

The $125 million does capture some spending that is not what you would call traditional holiday retail spending. For instance it includes the sales tax you pay on your utility bills. (Although, that’s kind of holiday related. Christmas is the one day of the year my wife lets the kids and me turn the thermostat up to 65 degrees.) But the majority of the $125 million are retail sales — everything from purchases at the grocery store to the jewelry store.

While a 5 percent increase for the season is solid, it is not spectacular. Over the previous three holiday seasons, the average increase has been 6.4 percent. If retailers feel like this year didn’t quite have the same zing as past seasons, that may be what they’re feeling. In fact, over the last six seasons, sales during the holiday period have grown by more than 6 percent every year but one. That one year, however, was a doozy. At the end of 2009, holiday shoppers clamped onto their wallets like my kids clamp onto their Valentine’s Day candy stashes. Taxable sales for the season fell 13.2 percent. So, that makes 5 percent look a little better.

Here’s a look at how Lawrence’s totals stacked up with some other large retail markets across the state:

• Dodge City: down 8.5 percent

• Emporia: up 4.8 percent

• Garden City: down 5.5 percent

• Hays: down 27.7 percent

• Hutchinson: down 4.6 percent

• Junction City: down 0.4 percent

• Kansas City: up 2 percent

• Leawood: up 5.2 percent

• Lenexa: up 4.4 percent

• Manhattan: up 0.9 percent

• Olathe: up 0.1 percent

• Ottawa: up 1.3 percent

• Overland Park: up 1.3 percent

• City of Shawnee: up 4 percent

• Topeka: down 0.6 percent

• Sedgwick County: up 1.5 percent

These numbers are just for a one-month period, so you should use caution in interpreting them. But it appears shoppers in many locations slowed down this holiday season. Lawrence retailers may have reason to feel lucky as 2014 gets underway.

Which is more than I can say about myself, if my banker doesn’t lend me money for some roses by the end of the day.

In other news and notes from around town:

• Look for March to be a key month to determine the fate of the city’s proposed rental licensing and inspection program. The program, which would expand the city’s limited inspection program to all rental units in the city, has been on hold since Commissioner Jeremy Farmer in late January said he wasn’t ready to vote on the program.

Farmer said he wanted more data about how the city’s current rental inspection program, which covers only rental units in single-family neighborhoods, has performed. The data from the city should be available soon, and Farmer said he then anticipates hosting a public forum to discuss the program in early March.

At that forum, Farmer hopes to have a compromise plan to talk about. He confirmed this week that he’s been talking with both supporters and opponents of a rental licensing and inspection program. Details of a possible compromise are a bit sparse at the moment, but Farmer previously has said he had some interest in removing some violations that aren’t related to life and safety from the inspection list. For example, rotting siding or an overgrown yard may not produce a violation that would prohibit a landlord from getting a rental license for a property. But inspectors would still note those violations of the city’s code and could take appropriate enforcement action. The main difference is that the city couldn’t deny a landlord a license over such violations. That’s important because in the future landlords will have to have a license for every unit they intend to rent.

Again, Farmer hasn’t released the details of the compromise yet, so we’ll see if that is the path it is still on. Farmer, though, did make it clear that he is intent on passing a licensing and inspection program.

“This public meeting that we’ll have will not be to talk about whether rental registration is a good idea or not,” Farmer said. “We’re way past that point.”

“I don’t think we are too far away from a really, really good compromise, though,” Farmer said.

Farmer said he hopes to be ready to vote on the issue “in the next month.”

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