The difficulties of working with merchants: "it's all about me"

The Lambda Rising bookstore on Connecticut Avenue in Dupont Circle has always had great window displays, contributing to an active streetscape. (DC Agenda photo by Aram Vartian)

People who work in the commercial district revitalization often get criticized when seemingly loved retail businesses close. The frustrating thing is that a lot of time the business owner never reaches out for help--until it is too late, when most of the options and tools you have to work with are no longer available, or aren't available because of the accelerated time frame that you have been presented with. Or they decide that the business is too much about them that they can't possibly imagine selling it to someone else who might possibly change it.

But it's not appropriate for a commercial district revitalization manager to talk about this "in defense" when criticized by residents and other stakeholders when businesses close.

But with regard to the last point, what I call "the business of me/retail as a lifestyle" problem of merchant perspective, is that they forget is that the barriers to entry in creating quality independent retail businesses are quite high, and that when businesses close, it actually makes it much more difficult for other in-business retailers, who lose an anchor in an otherwise increasingly chained up retail environment, and leaves the space vacant, or more likely to be snapped up by a chain store, if it's in a good position.

I mention this because the DC Agenda newspaper-website (a kind of resuscitation of the Washington Blade LGBT newspaper) has a story about the upcoming closure of the Lambda Rising bookstore, which in its heyday was a pathbreaking bookstore focused on the LGBT market, and an anchor of the gay community in DC.

See "Lambda Rising bookstores to close." From the article:

Deacon Mccubbin, 66, the store’s founder and co-owner, told D.C. Agenda in an exclusive interview that he plans to retire soon and that he and co-owner Jim Bennett, his domestic partner of 32 years, decided they would rather close the stores than sell them to a new owner who might change their focus and mission.

To me this is an incredibly shortsighted decision (although I do know that the business has been declining there for some time, especially as the books and other items that they sell have become more widely available at traditional bookstores) but not a surprise. And very frustrating.

What it means is that it's very unlikely that a new gay bookstore will ope.

On the other hand, it poses an interesting question. In center cities like Washington, are LGBT issues so mainstream that the need for a specialty bookstore is no longer so pressing? Has the LGBT community "dispersed" geographically so much that Dupont Circle is no longer the epicenter and the bookstore is less relevant to local shoppers? Etc.

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From the Boston Globe:

"200 years of pages turned" at the Andover Bookstore, which is celebrating its 200th birthday and is the second-oldest bookstore in the country.