Bank VP Turns a Page, Opens an Old-Style Newsstand

By age 35, Lisa Lubin was pretty much done with the banking business. The Thousand Oaks resident had spent 12 years in the field, working her way up from teller to vice president at several institutions.

She had become bored, she said, and she wasn’t thrilled with the direction of the industry.

“I was getting tired of the mergers, the acquisitions and the cutbacks in banking and didn’t see a real career in that area,” Lubin said. “I wanted to have a business of my own.”

That business turned out to be the Frontpage Newsstand, an outdoor stand designed in a 1940s New York style, which Lubin opened recently at Janss Marketplace in Thousand Oaks.

“There really was a need for it in Thousand Oaks,” said Lubin, who last June left a job as vice president of commercial banking at Charter Pacific Bank in Agoura. “I grew up here and I wanted to do something in this area.”

Frontpage carries 1,800 different magazines and 150 newspapers, as well as cigars, cigarettes, candy, maps and other accessories.

“We sell a lot of sports magazines, a lot of kid’s stuff. Bridal magazines of course have been very popular--we are coming into June, so people are planning their weddings,” she said. “All trade magazines from the entertainment industry are popular.”

Family friend Al Brooks, owner of five Al’s Newsstands in Southern California, helped Lubin get her shop up and running. Lubin said she may follow in Brooks’ well-traveled footsteps.

“I would like to open five newsstands,” Lubin said. “I will probably have a second one within the year.”

Lubin said she is negotiating with officials at Topanga Plaza about opening a newsstand at the shopping center.