No Surprise Ending for Independent Bookstore

The last, best hope for the Ventura Bookstore faded Thursday night.

That’s when its owner, Ed Elrod, got the word from his most recent prospective buyer. The word was no.

No, I can’t afford to put in the hours. No, I can’t afford to live on the store’s steadily decreasing profits. No, I don’t know how to goose once-loyal customers out of the easy chairs at Barnes & Noble, or spark a flagging interest in books, or stop the conglomerates from consuming small presses like so many hors d’oeuvres. So: No, thanks.

Too bad. A haven for intelligent browsers, the Ventura Bookstore has given downtown Ventura a touch of class for a long time. At 61, it’s also one of the oldest bookstores--if not the oldest--in Ventura County.

Elrod won’t close up immediately. But, starting this weekend, every book in the place is on perpetual discount. As they go out the door, they won’t be replaced. Sometime after the new year, the shop will shut for good.

“I’m tired,” Elrod said. “After what I’ve put into it and what it’s taken out of me, I couldn’t see doing it too much longer. It’s the law of diminishing returns.”

Unfortunately, it’s also the law of the survival of the fittest. Not so long ago, every downtown in America boasted at least one local bookstore. Now they’re going the way of mom-and-pop groceries, savings and loan associations, hardware stores smaller than the Astrodome, and, now that you mention it, downtowns themselves.

One day soon, we’ll see them only in movies dripping with nostalgia for a sweet millennium gone by.

“When we took over the store in 1978, independent booksellers accounted for 59% of all book sales,” Elrod said. “Now it’s 17%.”

Tables at the Ventura Bookstore have always been stacked with bestsellers, but the store was known more for less conventional fare--first novels, poetry, volumes of history from university presses. Classical music played, and the store dog--a Great Dane, in years past--flopped down in the biography aisle, sighing.

If you were a regular, Elrod might call to announce the arrival of something new and exciting about tap dancing or Tibet.

But the world of bookselling changed and the Ventura Bookstore didn’t quite keep up.

“We thought of the coffeehouse approach, but decided not to dilute the store,” Elrod said. “We always wanted books to be the main attraction, not coffee. Maybe that was a mistake.”

There was no Ventura Bookstore Web site, no Ventura Bookstore art gallery, no Ventura Bookstore wine bar.

It was just books--much as it was when a retired opera singer named Blendine Bickel started it in 1938.

After two other sets of owners, Elrod and his longtime partner, Kent Weigel, bought the store as it verged on bankruptcy 21 years ago.

For many of their years together, Elrod and Weigel each worked a full-time job in addition to putting in full days at the store.

For four years, Elrod worked the night shift at the Ventura post office. Weigel taught math at Buena High School until 1984, when, at the age of 37, he needed a quadruple bypass.

In the end, hard work wasn’t enough. After Barnes & Noble opened in Ventura, sales at the Ventura Bookstore dropped by 25%.

As more people seek books on the Internet, sales have plummeted another 20%. Some specialty bookstores aimed at children or mystery buffs or women have gotten by, but time has run out for such fixtures as the Earthling in Santa Barbara, and, soon, the Ventura Bookstore.

Elrod and Weigel tried hard. They drew crowds with book-signings by the likes of Gloria Steinem, Sue Grafton, Greg Louganis and Laura Schlessinger. They sponsored talks by local authors. They joined an independent booksellers’ lawsuit accusing the big chains of unfair business practices.

But sales kept falling, and even worse, Weigel grew so tired he’d have to grab naps in the store’s tiny office. They didn’t know it, but he was sick, and getting sicker.

Last March, he died of liver cancer.

Had he remained healthy, the store still would have closed. Elrod said they were prepared to “wind it down” in two years, when Weigel qualified for his teaching pension.

At this point, though, Elrod figures it would take at least a year to find a buyer, and he’s too exhausted to look further. A previous prospect kept scouring the store’s financial records for hidden profits, incredulous that two men were willing to put in 10 hours a day, six days a week to take home $65,000 a year between them.

The pair took three vacations in 21 years.

“They said you’d have to be crazy,” Elrod said.

In January 1998, Elrod and Weigel bought a smaller bookstore in Ojai called Table of Contents. Now Elrod will focus his energy there. He is selling the Santa Paula home he and Weigel shared; at 45, he still owes money on 9-year-old store renovations. He has saved little for retirement.

Still, he feels lucky to own a store in Ojai, which aggressively keeps big chains out of town. Not coincidentally, he pointed out, it also keeps two independent bookstores alive.

But that’s rare. The standard-issue retirement dream of running a little bookstore somewhere has evaporated.

“If you want to do it as a hobby and have plenty of money for inventory, then more power to you,” Elrod said. “Otherwise, I think it’s impossible.”

Steve Chawkins may be reached at 653-7561 or by e-mail at steve.chawkins@latimes.com.