Berkeley agonizes over bookstore's closing

BERKELEY, Calif. — Depending on whom you ask, the reason Cody's Books is going out of business is either because of the city of Berkeley, the homeless, the University of California, the war in Iraq, Ronald Reagan, the Internet or the lack of short-term parking.

Or all of the above.

What is certain is that come July, Cody's — the famed independent bookseller where poet Allen Ginsberg once howled, 1960s activist Mario Savio once clerked and author Salman Rushdie defied a fatwa — will close after 50 years. The store's owner, Andy Ross, said his decision was simple.

"We've been losing money for a number of years," said Ross, who bought the store from Fred and Pat Cody in 1977.

In recent years, independent bookstores nationwide have struggled with the growth of superstores such as Barnes & Noble and Web outlets such as Amazon.com, and Ross said that type of competition played a large part in the decline of Cody's.

But this being Berkeley, home of the Free Speech Movement and countless doctoral candidates, almost everyone in town has a thesis (or a conspiracy theory) about what really happened to Cody's.

In particular, Berkeley city officials are especially worried about Telegraph Avenue, which has long been the city's main commercial drag, a stretch of quirky shops and cheap restaurants and bars that has drawn generations of students, tourists and tie-dye aficionados.

Nearly $100 million is spent every year along Telegraph, a figure Mayor Tom Bates said "most places in the United States would be delighted with."

In the past 10 years, however, sales have slipped and several small businesses have closed, a development that has alarmed city officials.

"There's fear and horror at the thought of Cody's not being there," said Kriss Worthington, a city councilman who called a "Save Telegraph" town-hall meeting June 8 to address concerns about safety and sales along the avenue. "And unless the city reverses course, you can expect a deluge of other small stores leaving."

Just days after Cody's said it would close July 10, the city put together a supplementary budget package to pay for more police, a mental-health worker and a general cleanup campaign for the strip.

Part of Telegraph's appeal has always been its mix of freedom and unpredictable grit, and much of that spirit remains. In front of Cody's, some locals openly drink and smoke what is more than likely marijuana in the middle of the day.

But even in this famously liberal enclave, locals said that behavior gets tiresome fast.

"You've got the homeless, derelicts and drunks and other behavior that wouldn't be permitted anywhere else," said Gene Barone, a manager at Moe's Books, next door to Cody's, which has also seen its sales dip.

Other merchants said there has also been a demographic shift as baby boomers and free-lovers abandon the 1960s and head into their actual 60s.

"You can't buy a house for less than $1 million near the university. And if you're rich, you don't want to be on Telegraph," said Marc Weinstein, a co-owner of Amoeba Music, a store across the street from Cody's that has lost a third of its business in recent years.

But the rich and the poor are not the only ones getting blamed. Weinstein said the attitudes of the university and its students have also changed.

"What used to be a much more kind of social and politically orientated and active group is now much more business-orientated. There really isn't a passion for art and music the way there used to be," he said.

Ross agreed students' tastes may have changed. "If people are not interested in reading Kant's 'Critique of Pure Reason,' I can't make them do it," he said, adding that two smaller branches of Cody's Books — one in Berkeley and another in San Francisco — have adapted their catalogs to make them more reader-friendly.

The original Cody's, founded in 1956, was considered a business innovator for years, adding readings, talkbacks and kaffeeklatschen to the book-buying experience long before Barnes & Noble supersized the concept.

In the 1960s, Free Speech Movement leader Savio worked behind the counter at Cody's, and tear gas occasionally wafted in when Vietnam War protesters clashed with police.

The symbiotic relationship between the university and the street is showing signs of strain these days. At the town-hall meeting, there seemed to be anger at the university for diverting business away from local merchants to large companies such as OfficeMax, which recently secured a contract to supply the school with paper.

The city is pushing forward with its plan to add money to the budget and crack down on drug dealing in People's Park, the university-owned civic green near Telegraph where the homeless and diploma-bound share space.

But as much as things may have changed along Berkeley's main street, the song often remains the same, including a penchant for finding larger plots in local affairs.

Take Steven David Lewis (aka Screwy Lewie), a longtime Berkeley resident and guitar player who busks in front of Cody's. A Vietnam veteran, Lewis blames the store's closing on Reagan (for adding to the homeless problem) and the current President Bush.

"The war in Iraq is sapping all the little economies across the country, and Cody's was hit by that, too," Lewis said. "It's sad. This corner was part of the Free Speech Movement. I just hope they don't take that away, too."