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Holt Uncensored
Friday, February 19, 1999:

THE TIDE, SHE IS TURNING: CAPITOLA VS. BORDERS

How much do readers know or care about "the bookstore wars" and how personally do they take the plight of independent booksellers?

A whopper of an answer emerged during two stirring and suspenseful public hearings in Capitola, California, in which customers voiced their concern about the loss of independent bookstores if approval is granted to a new 25,000-square-foot Borders store.

Working into the wee hours of early yesterday morning (1:15 a.m.), the City Council of Capitola heard testimony from many dozens of speakers who revealed a surprisingly sophisticated knowledge of everything from Shared Parking Methodology to ancillary-vs.-freestanding cafes, loss of riparian vegetation, monopoly business practices, "impacted" traffic patterns and of course the effect of "big-box bookstores" on independent booksellers, on the publishing industry and on the reading choices of consumers.

At issue was a proposed shopping development near Highway One on a densely populated street leading to the charming downtown of Capitola-by-the-Sea, which was promptly renamed San-Jose-by-the-Sea or Milpitas-by-the-Sea or Generica-by-the-Sea by those opposed to chain stores in general and "megabookstores" such as Borders in particular.

Hundreds of people attending the packed City Council meetings (and earlier Planning Commission hearings) were almost universally against the Borders store. Mentioned frequently were the independent bookstores that have made the Capitola-Santa Cruz area legendary, ranging from the famous Capitola Book Cafe and Bookshop Santa Cruz to niche stores such as Kaleidoscope Teachers Store, Seeds of Change Children's Store, Mockingbird, Bookworks of Aptos and at least 15 other bookstores in a surrounding area of only about 100,000 people (Capitola's population is about 10,000).

"It's heartbreaking," said one speaker, "when Borders or Barnes & Noble comes into a community where there are pre-existing community stores, and pretty soon those stores begin to fold. [Borders' representatives] say they have our community's interest at heart, but if so, why don't we hear them say, 'We are newcomers here. We want to be good neighbors. We want everybody to survive. There ought to be a way for all of us to share what's here for those of you who have worked to develop and nurture this book market.' But you don't hear anybody say that. ... If the existence of these chain stores requires the systematic sacrifice of our network of independent bookstores, it's just too great a price to pay."

The diversity of speakers in itself was dramatic. A brain surgeon likened the "rampant growth" of megastores like Borders to "a tumor, with more and more cells growing" until all "we're not going to have any more Amy Tans or Barbara Kingsolvers - authors who would never make it if these types of corporate bookstores determine what gets published in this society."

A former soldier said he spent 10 years "in various third-world toilet bowls you never heard of fighting American money wars. . . . Supposedly we were going to defend things like democracy, and constituency, and community and neighborhoods . . . . I can't help but think that's what I'm trying to defend now. No one wants to see [Borders] happen. Ladies and gentlemen, this is your tax base . . . begging you not to let this happen."

The depth of concern and the committment of so many to investigate the matter individually was astonishing. One woman walked up to the podium with her husband and dumped a big bag of garbage in front of shocked Council members. "We'll clean this up, but Borders won't," she said, having collected the garbage from the parking lot of the nearest Borders store in Sand City, about 10 miles away. Another woman used her own tape measure to check square feet in the proposed development and discovered flaws in the original reports.

An independent traffic consultant counted cars and interviewed groups of customers going into the Sand City Borders. He reported that parking needs for the new Borders had been grossly underestimated (a dozen of others agreed, many with their own reports). The audience gasped when it was revealed the city's traffic engineer had used traffic studies that were15 years old, published "long before megabox bookstores like Borders were around." A master's degree candidate explained that none of the books required by her classes could be found at any Borders stores in adjacent areas - but all had been stocked by stores in the Capitola-Santa Cruz area.

One expects a love fest in a small town like this, and these residents did not disappoint. At the same time it was amazing to witness the depth of their research, the eloquence and passion of their remarks, the respect they brought to this forum and the lanugage they used in it.

"I am here tonight simply because of my deep affection for Capitola," said one person. "[But] I fear there is no end to the takeover of the corporate commercial landscape . . . When monopolistic business practices move into town, we lose jobs. When a corporate entity sets up shop in our former neighborhood commercial area, the money that leaves our pockets is not reinvested in the community; it goes back to fill the coffers at the corporate headquarters."

"Borders is not the innocent venture it appears," said one speaker. "It has been documented that these megabook chains . . . are determining what is to be printed and available," said another. "I believe it is a form of censorship when they tell authors what to write . . . Please, let's not cheat ourselves . . . by making this decision in favor of a Big Brother in our lives."

"Borders will always come with false promises," said another. " 'Oh, we have 200,000 titles,' they say, but after a few months, the inventory shrinks. 'Oh, we gear one-quarter, or one-third, or one-half the books to regional interests.' That is not true - this is a chain store that makes its money from a formula order in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Local managers are given very little leeway. 'Oh, we give money to local charities,' they say. Well, a few thousand dollars per store maybe, but that's far less than contributions made even by Seeds of Change children's store across the street."

"The site is inadequate." "The traffic lanes are unsafe." "There's only one ingress and egress for the parking garage." "Loading docks are a hazard." "Trucks have to back up across the main pedestrian walkway.'' Complaints flew across the hall all night. Surprisingly, only one Borders representative had planned to attend but pleaded a family emergency and sent a letter instead.

Most of all, the sheer size of this 25,000-square-foot Borders seemed to outrage all in attendance. For this small seaside village, a Titanic-sized bookstore was certain to dominate the site and, when celebrity authors appeared, the store would, many believed, fill up the parking area so fast that cars would back right out into the street and up the exit lanes of the freeway, turning Highway One into a gigantic parking lot.

Such arguments took the heat off the colossal dilemma facing City Council members: Certainly Capitola was as larded with chain megastores as any other, and with other bookstores. How could a government body, however sympathetic to the emotions of book-loving citizens, deny free enterprise by denying yet another chain, and this one a bookstore, no less? Wouldn't the Council be guilty of "stifling competition"?

Perhaps questions were valid during the post-World War II period, one speaker commented, when chain stores weren't gobbling up the competiton as fast and furious as they are now. Today, citizens look to City Councils to recognize the density of retail and traffic growth, the "malling of America" by chain stores and the domination of "megabigbox stores" like Borders - and say, finally, NO: Since existing independent bookstores already serve the community very well, and were here first, and have contributed to the character of the communty and all that makes Capitola distinctive, there simply isn't room for another huge chain store like Borders.

The City Council bought the argument, but with its own twist: Voting 3 to 2, members tentatively granted the approval to Borders but stipulated that the store could only be 12,500 square feet and that the cafe would have to be responsible for more parking spaces (previously it was considered "ancillary" to the bookstores and no parking spaces were assigned to it). Since it was announced that Borders has never built anything less than a 20-23,000-square-foot store inside the continental United States (Borders stores in Hawaii are smaller), the conclusion drawn by most people at the meeting was that Borders management would give up on the Capitola proposal and back out.

Perhaps the hero of the evening, then, was Neal Coonerty of Bookshop Santa Cruz, who spoke forcefully and magnificently against the Borders store in Capitola, knowing that the next location Borders may pursue is a 30,000-square-foot building a block away from his own store in downtown Santa Cruz.

Nothing will be decided officially in Capitola until the next City Council meeting on March 11. But if nothing changes, it appears that Borders for the second time in a few months (San Francisco was the first) has been turned down - first, because a backlash against big fat fascist chain stores of all kinds is underway; second, because customers do "get it" about "the bookstore wars" and are siding with independents; and third, because government bodies are listening to the people who elect them, embracing the idea of protecting community integrity and character, and knowing they do have the power to draw a line against corporate pressure they never thought possible before.

This night in Capitola, for all its complexities and compromises and legalese and delays, was a big one.

"Holt Uncensored" is an online column by Pat Holt
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