Shhhh. . . pass the cream and sugar

Mathis Winkler

NEWPORT BEACH -- How about a hazelnut latte to go with that Hemingway?

It won’t happen tomorrow, but the city’s library officials are

thinking about adding a coffee kiosk to the Newport Beach Central

Library.

The idea took shape during workshops for the library planning task

force in the spring of 2000. The group, which included about 50 community

members, came up with a five-year vision for the library. The proposal to

add a place where patrons could buy refreshments made it into the

library’s 2000-01 tactical plan.

While the document set last December as a deadline to “identify

additions . . . to existing facilities including provision for a

coffee/refreshment area at the Central Library,” so far the idea remains

just that.

“We have a vision,” City Librarian LaDonna Kienitz said. “We don’t

have an implementation plan.”

Library leaders said the kiosk would fill a customer void and allow

the organization to adapt to its patrons’ needs.

“We serve a well-read, well-educated, cosmopolitan community,” said

Patrick Bartolic, who chairs the library’s board of trustees. “We look

for things like this coffee [kiosk] to fit their lifestyle.”

Just like many bookstores, which now share space with coffee shops,

on-site refreshments would add to the experience for library visitors, he

said.

“It makes it more comfortable for people to come read and sip a cup of

coffee with their friends and enjoy a couple of hours together,” Bartolic

said.

He added that he hopes the library would get some money from the kiosk

to offset costs such as adding tables with umbrellas or a roof to the

library’s courtyard, a potential location for the kiosk.

Making the idea work financially may be tricky, as other libraries in

Orange County have experienced in the past.

A coffee shop in the Aliso Viejo branch of the Orange County Public

Library survived for about 2 1/2 years before closing about six months

ago, said Hilary McAllister, the branch librarian.

“It wasn’t very busy, and it wasn’t very profitable,” McAllister said,

adding that the library-owned space now sits empty.

At the Huntington Beach Central Library, three kiosk operators failed

before the current one, a family-run business, took over in 1998.

“The others were pretty limited in what they were offering,” said Ron

Hayden, Huntington Beach’s library director, adding that patrons can now

buy everything from fruit smoothies to sandwiches. “And it really is an

awful lot of hours” to keep the kiosk open.

While the business pays the library $400 a month in rent at the

moment, library officials are negotiating a new contract, which might

include a percentage of the kiosk’s revenues as rent, Hayden said.

In Newport Beach, only two of nine Central Library visitors

interviewed Thursday said they didn’t like the idea of bringing in

coffee.

“I think it’s completely wrong,” said Douglas William Reikle, who had

come to drop off a video. “If you’ve got, like, a coffee shop, people are

talking up a storm, and it’s just going to disturb other people. There

are plenty of other places to get coffee in this town.”

But others, such as Rusty Oshita, a premed student at UC Irvine,

disagreed.

“Sounds good,” Oshita said, throwing a glance at a coffee mug that sat

on his desk on the library’s second floor. He hastened to add that the

mug was naturally empty because library rules don’t allow food or drinks

inside the building.

“It would be nice if they had a section where people could bring

coffee,” Oshita said.

Bartolic said he didn’t like the idea of mixing books and coffee.

“I wouldn’t support that on any level,” he said, adding that it would

take up too much staff time “to keep up with the mess that it would

create.”

Huntington Beach’s Hayden said his team had started out with the same

idea.

“We used to attempt to restrict food being taken throughout the

library,” he said. “But we’ve sort of given up.”

While most visitors sit down at tables near the kiosk, a lot of people

want to take their coffee to the desk where they are working, Hayden

said.

“You’re going to get occasional spills and people leaving trash

around,” he said, adding that library officials had spent more time

monitoring patrons than dealing with spills. “But it’s relatively minor.”

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