Brief by Central Staff
Books – June 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine
We’re fond of bookstores, so 2003 has been a bad year, with Salida losing two shops.
Adventure Media closed at the start of the year; owner Connie De Luca said the last straw came last fall when Amazon.com, the big internet book retailer, started offering free shipping on orders over $25.
Meanwhile, over at First Street Books, owner Michael Dzubinski said that over time, he’d lost much of his special-order business to Adventure Media, “and we didn’t get it back when they closed.”
His last day in business was May 9, as for what comes next, “I don’t know, but it will be something different.”
Before we could get too serious about mourning the lost bookstores (and, to be honest, also the loss of advertisers), we discovered that Salida is getting a new shop, Book Haven, which will open in late May, across the street from Gambles.
And there’s still All Booked Up in Salida, across the street from the First Street Café, where business has held up well enough over the years, according to owner Jean Sutherland. Now, though, “we’re definitely Salida’s oldest bookstore, no matter how you figure it.”