And such is probably the righteous, revolutionary, proletarian rage of Friscoers that if Borderlands wasn't closing its doors, the greedy mob would quickly burn it down, even faster than their stupid-ass referendum did:
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. All of the subsequent ones have been less clear-cut but more difficult. 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. The credit for that achievement goes to the fine and extraordinary group of people who have come together to work here. Their hard work, combined with the flawless execution and attention to detail provided by Jude Feldman, Borderlands’ General Manager, is the reason we’ve succeeded for these past 18 years.
Throughout the years we’ve managed to plan for the problems that we could predict and, when we couldn’t plan for them, we’ve just worked our asses off to get through. 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.
Sure, everybody supports the concept of a "living wage" in principle. Everybody also supports the concept of everybody being rich, and good-looking, and being able to gorge themselves on cheeseburgers and Haagan-Das without gaining an ounce, and all manner of other fantasies that are impossibilities in the real world - in principle. Which obviously doesn't include San Francisco, and Seattle, and every other locality that imposes massive labor cost increases on its business community like they have money trees and magic wands "in the back" with which to miraculously pay for it all. And then they'll turn all the water into wine for an encore.
"Principle" in San Francisco is just one more thing that somebody else - more specifically, "rich, greedy businesspeople" - are supposed to pay for, as though there really was such a thing as bottomless pockets. In that pesky real world, there isn't. And retail book stores, as we learned in You've Got Mail, have very thin profit margins. Which one would have thought would have gotten them an exemption from Frisco's stupid-ass minimum wage dagger, since Borderlands was less "greedy" than the rest. And agreed with the concept of a "living wage". In principle.
But no. By Barack, they were going to swallow that 39% labor cost, like it, and ask for multiple follow-up helpings. And probably be required to give away their books for free by the next damned city referendum.
But nobody can stop them from going out of business. Thus throwing their entire workforce onto the parsecs-long unemployment line. Which just shows how greedy the owners of Borderlands Books really are after all, right?
Exit question: Will the last businessperson leaving San Francisco please turn out the lights? Assuming there's still electrical service?
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