Will you miss Stacey’s Bookstore when it’s gone? Do you care that independent bookstores are failing? Here’s your chance to do something.
On Wednesday, March 4, Stacey’s is staging its own sad farewell after 85 years in business in San Francisco. The store generates more than $4 million a year in sales and is dear to thousands of loyal customers, but soaring expenses and declining sales are forcing the shop out of business.
Gone will be three floors of books and magazines, along with smart sales folks. More important, San Francisco will lose an important literary institution, which will follow in the tracks of Cody’s and other bookstores that have failed in recent years.
The Public Press (www.public-press.org), San Francisco’s scrappy nonprofit news organization, will send a veteran reporter to cover Stacey’s demise, interviewing employees, book-lovers and others to memorialize the loss of the urban institution. We’ll also seek out author Cara Black, who’ll be on hand to offer the store’s final book reading.