96.5 F
San Fernando
Thursday, Mar 28, 2024

Encino: Going from Books to Booze

How many book stores does a community need? Or perhaps stated more accurately, how many bookstores can a community support? If it’s Encino, the answer is, “None.” It’s now official: as of the first of next year, the super-sized Barnes & Noble at the corner of Hayvenhurst Ave. and Ventura Blvd. will be closing…leaving Encino bookstoreless (it’s not a word, but it should be). It’s easy to blame Caruso Affiliated Holdings (“why doesn’t Rick Caruso just lower the rent?”) or Barnes & Noble (“Encino should be an important community to them”), but the truth of the matter is that the retail book business is on life support…and no one around seems to be interested in supporting its life. Browsing, Not Buying Louis Krokover, president of the Encino Neighborhood Council, says, “It’s hard to believe that a community with as many booklovers as Encino won’t have at least one bookstore. Unfortunately, many more people go into Barnes & Noble to browse and read rather than to actually buy.” But isn’t “browsing” a good thing…and doesn’t it often lead to “buying”? What’s a better way to sell the virtues of a product than to let the prospective purchaser sample it? But soon we won’t have to worry about bookstore browsing in Encino. No more children’s readings; no more picking up a magazine to read while sipping a latte from the next-door Starbucks; no more the joy of discovering a title or an author you’d never heard of before…and yes, no more browsing. But don’t despair…something we need even more than a bookstore is taking Barnes & Noble’s place…another pharmacy (he wrote, tongue firmly ensconced in cheek). Another Pharmacy! That’s right, in the first quarter of the year, CVS Pharmacy will be moving in and replacing shelves once stacked with cookbooks, history books, and novels with bottles of weight-loss pills, nostrums, and alcohol. And just to demonstrate what a neighborhood store CVS Caremark is, keep in mind that it has nearly 6,400 pharmacies in 40 states, $80 billion in annual revenues, and is the number-one provider of prescriptions in the nation. Of course, Our Valley’s Ventura Blvd. corridor is woefully underserved by pharmacies (not). There are more than 15 pharmacies just between the CVS at Ventura Blvd. and Louise and the one located at Ventura and Cedros in Sherman Oaks. At this rate we’ll have nearly as many pharmacies as Starbucks. More places to buy all the remedies pharmaceutical companies pitch on TV commercials, many of which we’ve never heard of. Restless Leg Syndrome? Be honest, did you know that there was something called “Restless Leg Syndrome”? Most of us didn’t until pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline told us about it…and, of course, assured us that they had the medication to control it. But in case you mistakenly believed that pharmacies exist to provide surcease from aches, pains, and illnesses, you haven’t been paying attention to what the folks from CVS are also focusing on…how many hours a day they can sell liquor at their soon-to-open Encino location. That’s right, another place to buy wine and liquor in Encino; ain’t that grand!? Four months ago, the Encino Neighborhood Council rendered its thumbs up to CVS’s application to take over the Barnes & Noble location…with the proviso that alcohol sales would be limited to 7 a.m. to midnight. Seems reasonable to me. A Competitive Disadvantage Not to the CVS folks, however. At the July 28 Neighborhood Council meeting, CVS requested it be permitted to extend its liquor sales from 6 a.m. to 2 a.m. The rationale given by their entitlement consultant (don’t you wish you had an “entitlement consultant”?) was that otherwise CVS would be at “a competitive disadvantage” with the nearby Ralphs. Luckily for all of us, the Neighborhood Council approved the request. After all, what would Encino’s residents do if they couldn’t purchase liquor between midnight and 7 a.m.? Makes one shudder to think of the results of a few hours of alcohol deprivation on the people in one of the most affluent zip codes North of Mulholland. Of course, there is a sort of undeniable irony to all of this…it was Barnes & Noble, along with just one or two other large chains, that spelled the near-demise of the neighborhood used book store. Kinda serves ‘em right. But I’d still rather have more books than liquor bottles in Encino. A bookstore is one of the only pieces of evidence we have that people are still thinking. —Jerry Seinfeld Martin Cooper is President of Cooper Communications, Inc. He is Immediate Past President of the Los Angeles Quality and Productivity Commission; Founding President of The Executives; Vice Chairman of the Boys & Girls Club of the West Valley; and a member of the Boards of the Valley Economic Alliance and of the LAPD’s West Valley Jeopardy Program. He is Past Chairman of VICA and Chairman of its Board of Governors; and Past President of the Public Relations Society of America-Los Angeles Chapter and of the Encino Chamber of Commerce. He can be reached at [email protected].

Featured Articles

Related Articles