Big Bookshops Squeezing Out Smaller Rivals

The proliferation of supermarket-type bookstores operated by large chains, along with the high cost of doing business, has caused at least seven small, independently owned Valley-area bookstores to close in the last two years.

In 1984 alone, five shops failed.

The long-range result, the remaining owners say, may be to make such bookstores, long a mainstay of American culture, as obscure as the corner mom-and-pop grocery store.

The prime discount chain, Crown Books, “has opened so many stores that the other chains have been forced to discount their merchandise,” said Diane Sharrar, co-owner of Bargain Books on Friar Street in Van Nuys.

‘Hard to Compete’

“Unless you have a big store, it’s going to be very hard to compete with the chains,” said Davis Dutton. Dutton’s family-owned bookstore in North Hollywood--where the staff serves up classical music, coffee and book talk along with a large selection of new and used books--has operated for 25 years.

Dutton predicted that specialization will be the wave of the future for the small-bookstore owner.

Betty Vasin, who had operated Alphabooks in Encino for 30 years, said soaring rent was the main reason she was forced out of business last June.

A new landlord bought the building Vasin was renting on Ventura Boulevard and raised her rent from $920 a month to $1,600, she said.

Rent Increases Blamed

“There’s no mercy for the tenants in a situation like that,” Vasin said. “I had two storefronts. After I left, one quickly rented at triple our rent. The other is still vacant. It will probably rent for more than $2,000, eventually.”

The discount stores are “diminishing the cultural life of the community,” Vasin said.

“The plaintive cry of the future will be, ‘Where are all the used-book stores?’ ”

Yet Vasin said that, after she got over the initial shock, she began to view the closing of her shop as a “blessing in disguise.”

She said she is now preparing to run a mail-order business from her home. She will sell “only the best-quality books” to dealers, she said, with her former customers getting first priority on all merchandise.

“I have too much expertise to just twiddle my thumbs,” Vasin said. “As long as I’m still in contact with my cohorts in the book business, I’m happy.”

Blanche Spindel closed her Personal Bookshop on Sherman Way in Reseda early last year for the same reasons as Vasin. The rent on her building tripled. She and her late husband, Mitchell, started the store 23 years before.

Libra Books, farther east on Sherman Way in Van Nuys, shut down in September. Leon Frunkin, the store’s owner, died a few months earlier and his daughter, Martha, couldn’t run the business without him, Vasin said.

Also closing in 1984 were a new Woodland Hills store started as an expansion experiment by Sam Briggs, who owns Briggs Books and Records in Northridge, and the Sherman Oaks Wholesale Bookshop, another Ventura Boulevard casualty.

Dutton said the closures are “a sad, sad commentary on our times” because the small, independent bookstores “have a cultural value that will be lost.”

Dutton’s store is one example of an independent bookstore that is almost certain to survive. The large volume of books stocked at Dutton’s North Hollywood store and the two other stores the family owns in Burbank and Brentwood makes it possible for Dutton to compete with the discount chain stores.

“I’ve seen one bookstore after another in West L.A. and the Valley fall by the wayside,” Dutton said. “In comes a jeans place or a boutique. Unless you have a good landlord who is not trying to squeeze money out of every last square foot, it’s rough.”

Sharrar said that she and her brother, Bill Wirt, don’t worry much about having to go out of business because of their large inventory and sales. Higher rents are not a threat because they are among the few booksellers who own the property on which their store is located.

“We might have to close the annex one day,” Sharrar said, referring to a store one door away she and her brother acquired two years ago. “We don’t own that property.”

In fact, Sharrar said, she wishes Crown would open a store nearby.

“It would just attract more customers to our store,” Sharrar said. “Crown doesn’t offer what we offer--personal service.”

Redevelopment Raises Rent

In North Hollywood, Don Weinstein said the rent at Valley Book City, which he manages, has tripled because of a major city redevelopment project in the area.

“We did get a new storefront,” he said.

Earl Spar of the family-owned Paperback Shack, who has been in business on Lankershim Boulevard in North Hollywood for 18 years, has added hard-cover books, which he discounts, to better compete with the chains. He still charges full price for all his paperbacks, however.

He said that, because of the store’s growth and a large clientele he has built over the years, he doesn’t worry about being forced to close.

“We started out on the other corner of the street with 900 square feet,” Spar said. “Now, we have 5,000. I think I’m safe.”

Spar has one of the most charming buildings of all bookstores in the Valley, a 1920 structure that formerly was occupied by Security Pacific National Bank.

‘Barely Hanging On’

Tony Frank, 77, who sells only new paperback books at his store on Burbank’s Golden Mall, said that after 15 years in business, he is “barely hanging on.” However, he said he too has developed a loyal clientele.

“People haven’t got the money to buy new hard-cover books,” Frank said. “Most will wait a year until the paperback comes out to read the best sellers. That’s when they come to my store.”

Sharrar said that at least one good thing had resulted from the growth of the discount chain bookstore.

“People are reading more,” she said.

And, although many small book dealers have closed, several large, independently owned stores for used books have opened in the Valley area in recent years.

Book Castle, which bills itself as one of the largest bookstores in the Los Angeles area, opened about five years ago in Burbank. The store on North Golden Mall occupies what once was a Woolworth variety store.

The building bulges at the seams with books on every imaginable subject. The store also features old posters, comic books, records and magazines, including the first few issues of Playboy, valued at $1,000 each.

Owners Steve Edrington, Paul Hunt and James Bruckner expanded in 1983 when Book Castle’s Movie World Annex opened nearby. Their newest store features books on acting and special effects, biographies, screenplays, posters, lobby cards and other memorabilia associated with the silver screen.

A few doors away, Book City has an estimated 2 million books displayed in clean, neat shelves and organized into categories and sub-categories. Rare and expensive books are featured in numerous glass cases. Terri Chapman, who works in the store, said no paperback book sells for more than $1.

“We’re thinking of discounting them even more,” she said.

Valley Book City, which is not connected to the other Book City stores, will mark its 10th year on Lankershim Boulevard in North Hollywood in July. Manager Don Weinstein said he has about 100,000 hard-cover books and about 100,000 paperbacks in stock.

Rather than being competitors, most Valley bookstore operators have a camaraderie that one former owner said is unlike any other in the business world. It is common for one store to refer a customer to another dealer.

“There’s nobody like book people,” said Vasin. “We have to bring a great deal into the book business--a common love of books and a lot of knowledge. I just feel more comfortable when I’m with people who love books. I find I don’t have much to talk about with other people. Books are my world.”

One of the few remaining small, independently owned stores for used books, Magnolia Park Books, has been in business at 3508 1/2 Magnolia Blvd., North Hollywood, since 1939. The elderly owner said she will sell any used book she can find.

“I have regulars who come in every other day,” she said. “They just come in and browse--often buying nothing. I serve tea and chat with the customers. I try to have a friendly little store here.”