News Junkies

Responding to an increasing demand from readers, newsstands are springing up on the Westside. In the past five years, their number has nearly doubled, from 10 to 19. “Consumers have an insatiable interest in news,” says a distributor, and alongside the more mainstream magazines such as Vogue, New Republic, Time, Sports Illustrated and House Beautiful are more specialized titles such as Blitz Chess, a periodical for bodybuilders who play chess. Operators battle to get the latest word out on the racks first.

Many different kinds of customer are fueling the boom in the Westside newsstand business these days. There are the hard-core news junkies, people who scoop up a half-dozen out-of-town newspapers and several magazines per visit.

There are careerists such as Geri Cusenza, creative director of a cosmetics company, who budgets upward of $1,000 a month on fashion magazines.

There are the young and the rebellious, particularly in the Hollywood area. At Melrose News, owner Ralph Davila says one of his best-selling categories is “puncture magazines, for people who stick rings and pins in their body and leave them there for very long periods of time.”

And there are the specialists. Bop’s Newsstand in Larchmont Village carries--and sometimes actually sells--a publication called Blitz Chess, a periodical for bodybuilders who play chess.

“Not exactly the biggest market niche around,” owner Bob Davis deadpans.

In response to a demand that is as diverse as it is voracious, newsstands are expanding and proliferating. In the past five years, the number of stands on the Westside has nearly doubled, from 10 to 19. Three chains, formed since 1987, are securing footholds while scouting for additional locations.

“Consumers have an insatiable interest in news,” said Don Parkin, a director of Los Angeles-based ARA services, the city’s largest magazine and paperback distributor. “Look around. There’s always a new stand popping up somewhere.”

Operators of newsstands, who deal with upward of 50 distributors, often battle to get their news out faster than competitors.

Some bypass distributors to deal with publishers who deliver must-have issues directly to stands. A newsstand that can get the annual Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition a day early, for example, will have a stampede of customers willing to pay a premium price.

Some newsstand owners also strike deals with area companies, such as movie studios, which are anxious to receive advance copies of stories about their firms.

Newsstands carry from 1,000 to 5,000 titles, which if unsold at a month’s end are returned to publishers for full credit. At Melrose News, in addition to the puncture magazines, Davila carries 50 fashion titles.

Why so many? Well, for people like Geri Cusenza.

“I prefer to call it a fetish,” Cusenza, creative director of Woodland Hills-based Sebastian International cosmetics, said of her interest in fashion magazines as she heaped a score of three-quarter-inch-thick periodicals into the sagging arms of her assistant.

“I’ve been coming here for 15 years,” said Cusenza, scanning titles as she shouldered back her black cape edged in gold lame. “I buy about 30 a month at stands and subscribe to another 40 back in my office.”

Tattoo Time and Skinhead magazines and “lots of left-wing political stuff” also sell well, said Davila, standing beneath the stand’s moss-green awning. “We can’t get enough of them.”

Sex, of course, sells everywhere. World Book & News in Hollywood, one of the area’s three 24-hour stands, has an extensive “sophisticates” section, as it is known, where a prominently displayed sign limits browsing without buying--”thumbing,” as it’s known in the trade--to 15 minutes.

World Book also has a home improvement section, featuring the likes of Colonial Homes and Country Living. And it carries Closet Cultivation and eight other journals devoted to marijuana growing.

At Bop’s Newsstand, Davis is proud of the fact that his shop, which opened early this year, has become a community gathering spot.

“The stand has developed into a central clearing house for what’s happening along Larchmont,” said Davis, 32. “People come here if they lose their dogs, kids or if they just want to meet somebody. It’s developed into a Mayberry RFD kind of feeling. Everyone says hello to everyone else.”

Passersby agreed with Davis. “This stand has got everyone talking to everyone else,” said neighbor Jerry Ross. “It’s really provided a focus--it’s completed the block. When I walk by, it feels like Paris.”

Davis added that newsstand owners and workers, much like bartenders, often lend a sympathetic ear to regulars. “People hang around and tell us their life stories,” he said as a passerby squeezed his arm, said, ‘Hi,’ and offered him half a grapefruit. “And they come to us when they want their teen-aged kids employed.”

Some regulars at Los Angeles newsstands travel long distances to satisfy their habit. Elliot Grossman makes weekly trips from his San Diego home to Westwood International News & Magazines on Westwood Boulevard.

“I’m a buyer for exotic cars, so I pick up about 15 out-of-town newspapers and search the classifieds for sales,” said Grossman, 29, who spends $600 a month on newspapers and a score of general-interest and automotive magazines.

On a recent afternoon, Grossman assembled a stack of Sunday editions from Chicago, Boston, Washington, Portland, New York, Denver, San Francisco, Sacramento, Minneapolis and Phoenix, slipping out the classified section of each.

“I could get all these in San Diego, but they don’t arrive until Wednesday or Thursday, and I need the classifieds on Sunday--before other buyers find the deals,” he said. “It’s a shame someone who loves out-of-town newspapers isn’t around. They could have a feast of my leftovers.”