Bowled Over : Thousand Oaks: Conejo Village lanes victim of changing times. Closure will be bittersweet. Patrons say they’ll miss landmark.

In Conejo Village Bowl’s heyday, local defense contractors lined the Thousand Oaks bowling alley’s polished wood lanes, rolling 16-pound balls, smoking cigarettes between frames, and spending money in pre-recession style.

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But bowling isn’t what it used to be in Thousand Oaks.

Longtime patrons have moved away and a 2-year-old city smoking ordinance has reduced business by 10%, said owner Larry Janss. As a result, he has decided to close Conejo Village Bowl, Thousand Oaks’ only bowling alley and a community landmark older than the city itself.

“I am closing because expenses have exceeded revenue for the past few years,” Janss said. “I can’t survive as a bowling center on this property.”

Located at 125 W. Thousand Oaks Blvd., the center will close its doors on May 31 and be replaced by a giant book and music store.

“It’s sad,” said Shirley Bode, 54, who has bowled at Conejo Village since 1971. “I’m sorry that it has become antiquated and nobody wants to bowl anymore.”

Waitress Annie Oksas has been serving drinks to patrons since the bowling alley’s opening night.

“I’m just sick about it,” Oksas said. “I just can’t imagine this landmark being gone.”

Borders Books and Music plans to lease the 40,000-square-foot building for 15 years, Janss said. The store will offer 150,000 works of literature, and will likely become the largest book store in Ventura County.

“It is going to bring one-stop shopping where you can find anything in the literature and music world,” Janss said.

Janss finalized a lease with Borders, an Ann Arbor, Mich.-based company, two weeks ago after seven months of negotiations. He would not discuss price or other details of the lease agreement.

A descendant of one of the founding families of Thousand Oaks, Janss said the new book and music store would better serve the changing community, which has demonstrated a strong interest in music and the arts.

But closing the landmark bowling center will be bittersweet, he said. The Janss family opened Conejo Village Bowl in 1960--four years before the city was incorporated--providing a central recreational area for local families.

In the years since, however, bowling has been eclipsed by other sports, such as golf, tennis and even roller hockey, Janss said, signaling the demise of the once-popular center.

“Bowling in Thousand Oaks was not meant to be,” Janss said. “I’m sure there are thousands of bowlers who will take exception to that.”

Indeed, longtime patrons say they will miss the recreational landmark. Regulars said Conejo Village Bowl is a vital recreational area for the community.

Thousand Oaks residents Paul and Edith Jones have frequented the center for more than 30 years.

“We were one of the first ones here,” said Paul Jones, 81. “I hate to see it go.” A former Rockwell employee, Jones used to bowl three nights a week with the company league, although he no longer bowls, Jones still comes to the center one night a week to see friends.

“Is there anyplace else to go?” his wife, Edith, asked.

Conejo Village Bowl ran into financial troubles in 1991, as recession-conscious patrons started to curb their spending. The decline in profits hit two years after Janss invested millions in expanding the center.

In 1989, he added 16 lanes, bringing the total number of lanes to 40 and making Conejo Village Bowl among the largest bowling alleys in the region.

Then, in the fall of 1993, the city passed a new smoking ordinance that prohibited smoking in bowling alleys. Although Janss said he supported the measure, he said it cut his bowling business by 10%.

“That was the biggest slap,” he said. “People left.”

Similar smoking ordinances have hurt bowling businesses in other areas of the county as well. In Ojai, a tough smoking ban resulted in the closure of that city’s sole bowling alley recently as well.

Bowling patrons say smoking bans have signaled the end of the sport in many areas.

Thousand Oaks native Ken Reed, 31, said he has been bowling at Conejo Village since he was old enough to walk. Said Reed: “It’s the only place you can come down for a small amount of money and spend time with your kids.”