News - Local News

POSTED: Tuesday, Jul. 29, 2008

The Newstand forced to close after distributor cuts service

BELLINGHAM - A popular downtown business known for its plethora of magazines as well as its court battle over First Amendment rights will be closing at the end of August.

The Newstand, operated by Ira Stohl for more than 18 years, will begin putting some of the store's products, such as maps and greeting cards, on sale Friday, Aug. 1.

Stohl said the reason for the closure was the abrupt ending of service from a major supplier of magazines, Source Interlink Distribution. The company sent Stohl a form letter at the beginning of July informing him that the last delivery would be Aug 1. Stohl called the company to find out details about the termination, and was told it was not supplying smaller independent stores like The Newstand, located at 111 E. Magnolia St.

Source Interlink regularly delivered 1,100 of the more than 3,400 periodicals that The Newstand currently sells, Stohl said.

With so much consolidation in the magazine distribution industry in recent years, The Newstand could only afford to work with one other distribution company, which would have resulted in the disappearance of several hundred magazine titles, as well as higher prices and later delivery on others.

In addition, The Newstand would have lost a considerable amount of business while waiting to get items from the other distributor.

"The short notice put us in an untenable position, because the margins in this business are so tight now," Stohl said. "It's a battle I didn't think we could win, from an economic standpoint. It's a shame, because our sales have been strong so far this year."

Stohl knows a bit about surviving tough battles. In 1995, he and his store manager were charged with a felony by Whatcom County prosecutors for promoting pornographic material by selling the magazine Answer Me!, which had a graphic story about rape. The Newstand eventually won the case in court and was awarded $1.3 million, which was later reduced to $720,000.

"The one thing that I can take away from having this business is that I felt Bellingham was a tiny bit better with us here and I was proud that we got to fight a little for the First Amendment," Stohl said.

The closure of The Newstand will be a loss to the community, said Chuck Robinson, co-owner of Village Books, an independent book store in Fairhaven. Robinson's store also does business with Source Interlink, and he hadn't seen a termination letter from the company. If he did, it would have an impact on less than half of the roughly 300 magazines Village Books carries.

"I'm really sorry to hear that Ira is closing The Newstand," Robinson said. "We referred people to his store all the time, because we couldn't stock all the different magazines that he was able to get."

Stohl said the termination letter he received from Source Interlink epitomizes what's been happening to the industry. The letter was addressed to "NEWSSTAND, THE" and didn't have a signature from a person, just a customer service department phone number for him to try to figure out what happened. In recent years, he said the only contact he's had with the supplier was to pay the bill.

Attempts to contact Source Interlink on Monday for this article were unsuccessful.

"There has been a lot of consolidation in this industry and there are just smaller numbers of bigger sellers left," Stohl said. "In order for us to survive, we needed to have a breadth of periodicals. The result now is there will be a thousand things that people in this area won't see in print."

After closing the business, Stohl said he's not sure what to do next, except spend more time with his family. He owns the building and will probably lease or sell it.

"We worked hard and never made a great deal of money, but I was one of those lucky people who enjoyed going into work every day. Since I was a kid I always thought newsstands were vibrant, exciting places," Stohl said. "Now I'm looking forward to working on the house and spending time with my children, telling them later what this place meant to me."

Reach Dave Gallagher at 715-2269 or dave.gallagher@bellinghamherald.com.