His father, August Caruso, worked in the landscape business and decided that the weather in the Mid-Atlantic was problematic and moved the family to Los Angeles, California in the mid-1920s.
[3] Caruso entered the automobile business by acquiring a number of new car dealerships, including from General Motors, Ford and Chrysler.
[2] This led to a legal fight in the 1970s that caused the Federal Trade Commission to take action and prohibit any practices that discriminated against small companies vying for airport locations.
[7] Many airports, newspapers, and local townships rejected his request to display the "Dollar A Day" sign as they felt it constituted false advertising.
[6] In 1973, the Palm Springs, California Planning Commission rejected Caruso's request for approval of a "Dollar A Day" sign as "misleading advertising.