Midnight Special’s Final Hour

Oliver Lukacs
Staff Writer

May 8 -- The Midnight Special bookstore, which has lived through three wars, seven presidents and four relocations, has finally met its mortal enemy -- high rent.

Six months after the counter-culture store -- which has battled the system for three decades -- was pushed off the Third Street Promenade by the forces of capitalism, it will shut its doors on 2nd Street, this time for good.

"Unless someone drops a couple million dollars in our lap in the next couple days to pay off our debt, we're going to close," said Ruben Perez, one of many employees who over the store's 34 years has contributed to the more than 100,000 hours of volunteer work to keep the landmark bookstore alive.

The closing will mark the end of era for the store, which was born in Venice out of the spirit of protest that exploded at the height of the Vietnam War.

With its provocative window displays and bookracks brimming with controversial titles, the store has remained a symbol of protest.

But after six months of slow foot traffic pushed it ever deeper into debt, the alternative bookstore was left with no alternative.

"We opened in the minus, and we haven't been able to get out of that hole, even though we got a lot of support from the community,” Perez said. “It helped, but it wasn't enough to keep us going."

The store, Perez said, didn’t come close to breaking even. "Not even close. We got to close before it gets worse," he said.

Midnight Special’s owner, Margie Ghiz, was "too overwhelmed" to comment, and Perez described the atmosphere in the store as "angry" and "sad."

Before moving to 2nd Street, the bookstore was kept afloat by the goodwill of its workers, who donated labor, and the generosity of Wally Marks Jr., the store's longtime benefactor, whose family subsidized its tenure on the Promenade over the last decade.

For both patrons and staff, who participated in the weekly discussion forums and attended the 25 monthly readings in the cultural center in the back room, the Midnight Special was not just a bookstore.

"This was my first job," said Perez. "This has been more than a job. This has been my school, my education. So it means a lot."

It is through that education that Ghiz hopes the spirit of her beloved store will live on.

"Nothing will die when the Midnight Special closes it doors,” she wrote in her farewell address on the store's website, “because all of you and our staff of the last 34 years and today -- Ruben, Rolando, Erin, Bill, Lorraine, Olin, Daniel, Jason and Jim -- are the life of the Midnight Special, and each one of us is part of a much larger voice that cannot be
silenced."

While a date has not been fixed, Midnight Special will close its doors for the last time in four to five weeks.

In a final twist to a long and turbulent ride, the store where Karl Marx's ”The Communist Manifesto” is a bestseller that sits next to the register will hold a blowout sale beginning Saturday.