American Notes FLORIDA

Woolworth has been known as a place to buy hairpins, shoelaces or holiday goods. Now customers can find something more pricey -- and deadly -- in F.W. Woolworth outlets in North Miami Beach and Hollywood, Fla. There $600 buys an Uzi semiautomatic machine gun, a version of the weapon developed for the Israeli army and now admired by terrorists and drug merchants. Says Woolworth spokesman Joseph F. Carroll: "When a person can relate to his friends that he has bought an Uzi, it puts him in a different league." Some think Woolworth is putting itself in a new league. "It is outrageous, reckless, foolhardy and perverse," says Lieut. Mike Gonzalez of the Miami police homicide division.