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W W W. D O W N T O W N N E W S . C O M
August 15, 2011
Volume 40, Number 33
INSIDE
Healthcare
Trying to Buck the Bookstore Trend Josh Spencer and His Massive Downtown Used Book Haven Look for Lasting Business
Urban Scrawl tries jaywalking.
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Aggressive timeline for a stadium.
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Get the latest Restaurant Buzz.
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photo by Gary Leonard
Josh Spencer began selling books on eBay in 1998 and opened the Last Bookstore in Downtown in 2009. In June, he moved to a new 10,000-square-foot space on Spring Street. by Ryan VaillancouRt staff wRiteR
land of worn pages. The faux prehistoric creature was a last minute addition, no irony intended, said shop owner Josh Spencer. But it’s impossible to ignore the symbolism: A 20-month-old independent bookstore moves to a far larger space and seeks to buck an industry trend that has seen numerous brick and mortar lit purveyors go extinct, unable to survive in the age of Amazon and e-readers. Spencer is not like most of the independent booksellers that have folded. Behind the old-school
curtains of his new shop at 453 S. Spring St., he is very much engaged in the digital marketplace. The web, in fact, has long been his bread and butter. The Last Bookstore started in 1998 on eBay and, by 2010, Spencer was selling 150 books per day online with the help of six employees. That’s three times the volume that the business would do in its first Downtown shop, which opened in 2009 at Fourth and Main streets. Even after moving into the bigger digs in see Books, page 9
A modern maverick gets a MOCA show.
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Community and the cops come together.
Early Lessons From the Mayor’s Race
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he Last Bookstore, which in June moved to a massive, high-ceilinged space at Fifth and Spring streets, may have unknowingly selected a perfect mascot. Mounted prominently inside the shop, on a wall about 15 feet above the floor, is a gigantic, taxidermy-style Woolly Mammoth. The brown-headed beast gazes down upon the wooden shelves and the shoppers, frozen in time as he lords over this
Eight Things the 2013 Campaign Has Revealed So Far by Jon RegaRdie executiVe editoR
Five great entertainment options.
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18 CALENDAR LISTINGS 20 MAP 21 CLASSIFIEDS
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he field is not complete. It will be months, if not longer, until the first polls are released. The candidates and would-be candidates are, for the most part, acting as if they respect each other. Still, there are already some lessons to be gleaned from the 2013 Los Angeles mayor’s race. THE REGARDIE REPORT
The recent filing of financial statements for the first fundraising period reveals a bit about the campaigns of the four principal declared candidates. The general speechifying and politicking by three other potential combatants also shows something about where their heads are at and where their tactics may lie.
It’s a long way until the March 2013 primary, but these are eight truths we already hold to be self-evident. You Can’t Spell Savvy Without the Letters B-E-UT-N-E-R: At some point in the weeks before Aug. 1, the date by which candidates needed to file their fundraising and spending information with the City Ethics Commission, former first deputy mayor and financial wizard (only one of those was an official title) Austin Beutner likely had an inkling that he would not be the money leader. At which point the following conversation may have occurred. Campaign Aide: My spies tell me that we’ll be third in cash raised. What should we do? Beutner: File early. Campaign Aide: Whachoo talkin’ ’bout Austin? No one files early. For reasons unknown to man
The Voice of Downtown Los Angeles
and politicians, everyone waits until the deadline date and then puts in their paperwork. Beutner: File the Wednesday before. It’s better to have stories with the headline “Beutner Raises $405,000” than “Beutner in Third in Money Game.” Campaign Aide: Good call. You sure are savvy. Beutner: Boo-ya! While the conversation may not have gone exactly like that, Beutner did drop his numbers five days before the rest of the field, and benefited from a wave of stories on his fundraising prowess. Sure, he got the he’s-in-third-place reports when everyone else filed, but at least he made the initial score. It’s hard to tell if this prefaces an Apple-like “Think Different” campaign, but it’s an interesting sign. Hit the Friends First: Wendy Greuel, who has two see Election, page 10