LETTERS IN VIEW : Livelihood at Magnin Is Still a Healthy One

I was shocked by Mary Rourke’s commentary on I. Magnin in the March 5 View (“The Decline and Fall of High Society Shopping).” The gist of it seemed to be: Magnin’s is old-fashioned and dying; anyone modern shops at Neiman, Saks or Shauna Stein.

May I ask how Rourke would feel reading her article if she were an employee of a healthy Magnin’s like the much-expanded Beverly Hills store? Might she feel, as I do, that someone was knocking her livelihood for no good purpose?

I am not a disinterested party, being a sales rep who deals with the store, a customer and a Californian who’d like to see the last great California better store survive. I must question your printing this premature obituary and virtual call for the consumer to abandon Magnin’s as passe.

BOB KELLERMAN

Los Angeles