ojai news at The Ojai Post :: blog, newspaper, events in Ojai, California

Lament. Life is like this. Ojai Video had a great selection. For people living downtown, its not obsolete and better than Netflix. Alas, they stuck with the late fees, which is obsolete, and a pretty high price point. I think people out of the downtown core gradually moved to Netflix et al, and that's it. And some in downtown got sick of late fees, or were already on Netflix when they got here. Add a rent rise, either current or coming, and working for the landlord and the tax man just ain't a great deal.

Hey, they lasted longer than the record store and the newstand. That's something. And at least they didn't become a porn shop to keep the doors open.

They had the largest selection of VHS tapes in California.

Wow. Very bummed. We also supplemented Netflix via the local store. I almost always ran up late charge fees, but didn't mind.

this reminds me to head down there and check out their documentary section, now that everything's for sale!

i have many friends who've worked at Ojai Video, and am sad to see it go because of the job loss it represents, along with the only non-corporate video store within walking distance of my home. in an era where we're consciously moving TOWARD small, independent, sustainable practices, this is definitely a step backward. Boo on LazyFlix.

I personally have NEVER used corporate Netflix.

a good portion of the films have been purchased by and/or donated to ojai house- you can rent from them for $1.

This makes me sad. One of the few things i'd get to do on my visits home that made ojai feel like home. All the little things are slowly disappearing..

The OVN reports rent was $4,000 a month.

B Dawson and the owners say it was not raised and don't blame high rent. That's nice of them. But $4,000 a month is too much rent for a standalone video store in a town the size of Ojai. Will any of our landlords see fit to lower rents while we still have a few independent businesses? Or does everything need to die out first?

I bet at $1,000 a month rent, we'd still have a great local video store there for years to come.

And seriously, is that space possibly worth more than that? I've seen commercial space on State Street in Santa Barbara for half what this reported rent was.

How about it, landlord? After all, let's be real. If not a video store, what will go in that dark, parking-lot-facing, back lot, non restaurant-bar ready, non-office-appropriate space? I think the rent is coming down to $1,000 anyway on it. Times are tough and space is abundant. Might as well be a hero.

The media may have quit banging the recession drum as hard as it was 3 or 4 months ago, but it's still happening and it's still getting worse. Maybe things are OK for people who are somehow managing to make some money off of this downturn, but life just keeps costing everyone else more and more money with each passing week.

When I was a kid and my dad lost his job when his employer gathered his employees together one Friday and told them that he was sick and couldn't keep working anymore and that everyone needed to start looking for new work, I remember the kinds of things we started cutting out of our life in order to save money so that we could survive until my dad found new work. We stopped going to movies. We stopped taking drives. We cut back on gifts. We even stopped window shopping. We cut back everywhere we could so that my dad could keep paying the rent, making the car payments, and buying food. If that had all happened today, I know that we'd have given up renting videos. I know that I have.

I expect to see a lot of businesses, small & large, near & far, close their doors unless things get better. Anyone here see things getting better any time soon?

#8, would you see fit to take a voluntary pay cut?

phalarope, you traiterous coward! cutting out essentials like entertainment and driving?? don't you know you're supposed to keep stimulating the economy by spending, spending, SPENDING....even if you don't actually have the money? the federal government does that, and everything works out just fine. ;P

(no, i don't see it turning around any time soon. we've already spent money that our great great granddaughters don't/won't have.)

#10, I think the point being made is that greatly reduced rent is not going to end up being a "voluntary pay cut." Its a choice of collecting $0 on the space until all rents have moved down to a realistic level, or taking the bull by the horns, recognizing reality, and reducing the rent to a realistic level while one still has a paying, viable tenant.

In other words, its not a "pay cut," its actually a net pay gain.

it's supply and demand, so I suppose they will reduce the rent if they don't get a new tenant

perspective and truthiness here:
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4039563145970308239&postID=3349248180494471755

We don't need all this consumerism anyway, the less commercial businesses that exsit the better. It just means that there will be less deliveries, less driving, less of everything which only serves to increase everybodies carbon footprint.

snarky much Brian?

Interesting conversation here about the rents of commercial real estate in Ojai.

This is not exactly relevent to this thread but it's definitely snarky.

Conservative point of view

Give a man a fish & he'll eat for a day.
Teach a man to fish & he'll eat for a lifetime.

Liberal point of view

Tax a man for fishing.
Use his fish to feed your constituency.
Regulate fishing in such a way that he can no longer make a profit fishing &
goes out of business.
Give him a fish so he can eat.
Then, give him a tax return as if you had taxed him for the fish you gave
him.
Then, raise his taxes because he has more fish now.
Subsidize the failing fishing industry.
Raise taxes to pay for subsidizing the failing fishing industry.
Pass a law creating more fish.
Fund a three year study to find out whether fishing causes global warming.

Don't you mean:

Teach a man to fish & he'll eat for a lifetime or until a Republican administration illegally invades his country and bombs his family with cluster bombs that every other country has banned.

Two can be snarky.

Brian, that's a funny example of right wingers claiming ownership of traditional liberal viewpoints. The "teach a man to fish" has always been used by those of the liberal persuasion to counter the prison-not-schools, invasion-not-aid right wing reactionary approach. It is an illustration of the wisdom of traditionally "liberal" social programs. It means, give a hungry person food to eat, but don't stop there; help him gain the means to feed and support himself.

Right wingers have perverted it to disparage giving a hungy person food; they hoist this as a canard to attack safety net programs of last resort such as food stamps and SCHIP. Meanwhile, they of course never visit the "teach..." side of it, opposing any and every effort that might help the hungry person gain the means to feed himself or herself.

The conservative approach can be better stated:

Don't give a hungry man a fish, and you can keep him from eating today. Don't teach him or permit him to be taught to fish, and you can keep him from eating for a lifetime.

That way, he'll be more amenable to joining your army, feeding your privatized prisons, working in your sweatshop; or dying.