When I lived in Calif the answer was A big NO. Sense I moved here to the Vegas area it's A Giant YES!!! Just today I visited three of them over by the strip. There are two other ones just east of me. Of the three I went to today one of them is the best I have been in sense the 60s, one is really very good and one is A bit better then the two on the east side of town. I'm in LHS heaven here.
I still do quite A bit of mail order stuff but it's for things like paint, Klass Kote and bearings, Boca then I do A lot of shopping for servos and radio gear but let my LHS meet or beat the prices I find.
Can't tell you how nice it is to have these choices close at hand.
