{"id":5252,"date":"2011-02-18T13:25:00","date_gmt":"2011-02-18T13:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lbpost.com\/articles\/life\/how-should-we-feel-when-a-chain-store-leaves\/"},"modified":"2011-02-18T13:25:00","modified_gmt":"2011-02-18T13:25:00","slug":"how-should-we-feel-when-a-chain-store-leaves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/hi-lo\/how-should-we-feel-when-a-chain-store-leaves","title":{"rendered":"How Should We Feel When A Chain Store Leaves?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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<\/strong>Photo by Ryan ZumMallen<\/em><\/p>\n

10:22am |<\/strong> As you might have read here<\/a>, Borders is bankrupt, with preliminary indications being that their two Long Beach locations will close.<\/p>\n

I’m not sure how I’m supposed to feel about that.<\/p>\n

I am not a Borders employee, and rarely have I been a customer\u2014almost every time I go inside one here it’s to obtain parking validation for my friends so they can enjoy 90 minutes of free parking in the Pike structure\u2014so my life is unchanged. <\/p>\n

I get what’s pleasant about browsing through a gargantuan bookstore1<\/sup><\/strong>. Yet, even if Barnes and Noble weren’t still around, we could still have our literary needs met without leaving the city\u2014so this is not a great loss for the consumer.<\/p>\n

Many people will lose their jobs, of course, and that just sucks. Then there’s also the bigger indicator in play: the economy is (still) bad, both nationally and locally. And we’re about to see more empty retail space, which is the last thing this town needs.<\/p>\n

Also, while I can’t help but pull for independent businesses over chains and franchises, Borders was not at the top of my hit list. Exxon-Mobil I don’t like. Walmart I don’t like. Borders I could live with.<\/p>\n

But did we need a Borders at the Pike2<\/sup><\/strong>? Was it really an outstanding civic decision symbolically to announce to Convention Center visitors, “Long Beach, just like anywhere else in the country”?<\/p>\n

I’ve always had a problem with gentrification occurring where it’s not needed. And I have always despised Long Beach’s incremental steps toward being homogenized into West Orange County, inviting the ubiquitous to crowd in on the unique.<\/p>\n

My favorite example is Starbucks. Despite serving coffee that tastes like chemical swill, more often than not you walk into a Starbucks and it’s clean, they’re playing good music, you can get plenty of drinks and foodstuffs that are pretty damn good, and the seating might even be better than half-bad. You can do a lot worse than Starbucks. <\/p>\n

But Starbucks is my favorite example when discussing any aspect of chains in Long Beach because a couple of years ago when Starbucks announced it was closing 600 stores nationwide\u201488 in California alone\u2014not a single closure was in Long Beach, despite our embarrassment of riches when it comes to indie coffeehouses and cafes. <\/p>\n

Today the number of Long Beach Starbuckses\u2014not even counting ones inside other stores (e.g., Vons, Albertsons)\u2014is in double-digits, with many doing brisk business only blocks from independent coffee options. Intellectually I have some grasp of how this is possible. In my proverbial heart, though, I just don’t understand this kind of thing. You may love P.F. Chang’s or Chili’s, but I’m not sure why you love them in Long Beach, since all over town we’ve got great restaurants you’ll never find in an Anaheim mini-mall.<\/p>\n

I’m not a complete NIMBYist when it comes to chains. Some, like Trader Joe’s<\/a>, are as good as it gets. Some are able to provide you with options (location, variety) that make for a better quality of life. Some are great in areas where you really have no other options. <\/p>\n

But otherwise, who needs ’em?<\/p>\n

I’m damn sure I don’t know much about business. I’ll never be a member of the Long Beach Area Chamber of Commerce. But I think I might be able to take something of an anthropological and sociological view of my fellow citizens. And through such lenses I see how freely humans fall toward the familiar. Give us an AMC Movie Theatre and we might never discover the Art Theatre<\/a>. Give us a Tokyo Wako and we might never make it to Maru Maki<\/a>. One can only wonder how many people have never discovered {open}<\/a> because book-buying has always meant Borders.<\/p>\n

This problem is exacerbated when it comes to non-residents, since these people are here only for a short time and so cannot over the course of months and years come to our rarer and better options on their own. So wouldn’t it be better to make them explore a bit (preposterously easy to do in our Internet\/iPhone age) so as to come across a special Long Beach treasure instead of playing into that aforesaid tendency toward the familiar? If an out-of-towner stumbles across Modica’s<\/a> instead of stopping the search at “Oh, there’s a California Pizza Kitchen,” aren’t we a little better off, both for what we get and what that visitor takes back with her to Anywherelse, USA?<\/p>\n

Bon voyage, Borders. Maybe you weren’t so bad. But maybe we can do better. We’ve got a lot to offer in this city, a lot that can’t be found elsewhere. If our city and commercial planners look to highlight rather than undermine that fact, I have to believe we’ll be moving in the right direction.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n

Footnotes<\/span>
1<\/strong><\/sup>I don’t<\/em> get anyone who will miss having coffee and reading (etc.) in Borders Caf\u00e9. Um, hello? You can barely turn around in Long Beach without finding a much<\/em> nicer place specializing in just that service.
2<\/strong><\/sup>We’ll leave aside the question about whether we needed the Pike at all (particularly as-is).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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