San Francisco bookstores are closing their doors
because they can’t afford to pay entry level workers a “living wage.” Borderlands Books, along with other small
businesses, have fallen prey to liberal, economic policies.
Borderlands is closing.
In 18 years of business, Borderlands has
faced a number of challenges. The first and clearest was in 2000, when our
landlord increased our rent by 100% and we had to move to our current location
on Valencia Street. The steady movement towards online shopping, mostly with
Amazon, has taken a steady toll on bookstores throughout the world and
Borderlands was no exception. After that and related to it, has been the shift
towards ebooks and electronic reading devices. And finally the Great Recession
of 2009 hit us very hard, especially since we had just opened a new aspect to
the business in the form of our cafe.
But, through all those challenges, we’ve
managed to find a way forward and 2014 was the best year we’ve ever had. Overall, Borderlands has managed to defeat
every problem that has come our way. At the beginning of 2014, the future of
the business looked, if not rosy, at least stable and very positive. We were
not in debt, sales were meeting expenses and even allowing a small profit, and,
perhaps most importantly, the staff and procedures at both the bookstore and
the cafe were well established and working smoothly.
So it fills us with sorrow and horror to
say that we will be closing very soon.
In November, San Francisco voters
overwhelmingly passed a measure that will increase the minimum wage within the
city to $15 per hour by 2018. Although all of us at Borderlands support the
concept of a living wage in principal and we believe that it’s possible that
the new law will be good for San Francisco — Borderlands
Books as it exists is not a financially viable business if subject to that
minimum wage. Consequently we will be closing our doors no later than March
31st.
Remember, the
“living wage” is part of the Democratic Party’s middle class economics
platform. Enjoy!
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