Minimum Wage Hike Closes San Francisco Bookstore

[Arcadiasix]

An independent San Francisco bookstore says it will be closing its doors by March 31, despite having its best year ever in 2014. And it’s pointing at San Francisco’s newly enacted minimum wage law as the reason.

Borderland Books, which specializes in science fiction and horror, says it has withstood a host of challenges since it opened in 1997, including the rise of Amazon.com and e-books, a landlord who supposedly doubled their rent while dotcoms were first booming, and a deep recession that the owners say “hit us very hard.” A higher minimum wage, though, would take the business from being modestly profitable to being a money loser, the owner says.


http://finance.yahoo.com/news/minimum-wage-hike-closes-san-213700882.html

[Luminous Animal]

1. They have another 3 years to see how it plays out. I call shenanigans.

[Arcadiasix]

3. Neither you nor I have seen their books

Do you know something about their business I don't?

[Luminous Animal]

7. I've visited their bookstore often. It is mostly empty.

And has been for years. Great naked cat (s), though. The street they are on is a "foodie" street and their cafe has been a success. The demographics of the neighborhood has changed dramatically. They have not. It is still dark and and not well organized. They are stuck in the 90s. And the staff is unhelpful and rude if they don't think you are sufficiently hip to their scene.

They've fallen behind the times. I am encouraged that they are holding a public meeting to discuss their future. I am discouraged that the meeting will not likely be attended by anyone under the age of 40.

[WhaTHellsgoingonhere]

4. lol just like the cry-baby insurance companies immediately jacked up

rates intentionally and sold it as the cost of passing Obamacare.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

8. The shenanigans lies in how it's being reported,

not in the actual statement put out by the bookstore, which is far more nuanced and in-depth. (A commenter under an earlier OP on this provided a good chunk of the bookstore's actual statement.)

[Starry Messenger]

10. Same here.

His blog post on this also shows that he's unwilling to adopt some models that have kept other bookstores, like Kepler's, open through changing times for bookstores.

With higher wages comes more money from customers with cash to spend on books. That didn't factor into his math.

[Gormy Cuss]

2. More likely the issue is that retail bookstores are a dying breed

and blaming the minimum wage hike is a convenient excuse.

[Arcadiasix]

5. Or the final nail in their coffin

Although where books are concerned will be a market for paper books digital is going to the be majority eventually. If it isn't already.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

6. In another, earlier OP, a commenter provided several paragraphs of the statement

they put out, which pointed out that it wasn't really the minimum wage hike that caused them to have to close, but the structural issues with who gets to put retail prices on books (the publisher, not the bookstore) and the way that giant megacorps like amazon can undercut them on prices. As they noted, their in shop eatery could simply bump prices up to cover labour costs, but they had no control over the prices publishers put on books, so they couldn't simply do the same on the bookstore part of the place.

[Luminous Animal]

9. Thank you.