Less than three weeks after being named the 2009 Best Bookstore in Kitsilano, independent bookseller Duthie Books will shut its doors at the end of February after 52 years in business. The family-owned chain was founded in 1957 by Bill Duthie.
The Vancouver Sun’s Randy Shore interviewed Duthie Books owner Cathy Duthie Legate and here’s a sample of what she had to say:
“I’m just not making it, so I’m going to close it down,” said Duthie Legate. “We are going to start our regular sale January 28, but it will be better, of course, with discounts of 40, 60 then 80 percent and I hope to have all the books out of here by the end of February.”
“Then I will tear down the store,” she said. “I’m sorry that it will leave a void in the city.”
“The last two years have been brutal,” she said. “When the dollar went par that hurt and then last year hurt.”
“Most of the year we run in the red and at Christmas we run in the black,” she said. And this year my black wasn’t as black as it should have been.”
“I’m in good shape and this is the one time that I can do this where I pay everybody off and pay severance and everything is good. It costs a lot of money to close down.”
No doubt Duthie Books has been hurt in recent years by competition in the book market from all sides – big box stores, online retailers and now e-books like Amazon’s Kindle.
It will be a sad day in Kitsilano when Duthie Books closes its doors.
Photo credit: Jacek S. on Flickr
