Source Interlink tells independent stores in northwest U.S. that they're too far away

Here's a careful, passionate, thorough, partisan and altogether depressing story about independent newsstands in the Pacific Northwest who have essentially been fired by by their distributor, the giant Source Interlink. The story comes from the site crosscut.com. And it details how the decision threatens the existence of independents.

The Newsstand in Bellingham, Bulldog News and Broadway News in Seattle and Rich's Cigar Store in Portland were told they were being terminated by form letters. "Just a form letter, no signature. Eighteen years as a customer and they don't have the courtesy to sign the letter," said Ira Stohl (above), owner of The Newsstand. He'll be locking his doors come Labour Day.

The store owners found out that their corner of the country is considered too far away and too much trouble to deliver magazines. First and Pike News didn't get the form letter; the magazines -- including bestsellers like Time and Newsweek -- just stopped coming.

A magazine distribution system that seems designed to drive retailers into therapy is driving them out of business. The dominant company in that system has notified two of Seattle's three remaining independent newsstands, along with one in Portland and the only one in Bellingham, that the distributor will no longer distribute. Not to them...

This isn't about street corner kiosks. These are full-service magazine stores that cater to people with a passion for reading. Bulldog News of Seattle offers 1,600 square feet of magazines and newspapers. First and Pike News (known for years as Read All About It) sells more than 2,500 titles in its 700 square feet, and it's the region's top dealer in foreign language periodicals, a reflection of Seattle's rich mix of nationalities...

In one sense it's the Internet in reverse. If the net's the place to find whatever you're looking for, The Newstand is the place to find what you were not looking for and may never have heard of.

Source Interlink is the largest distributor and after a major round of buy-outs of competitors around the U.S., it now serves more than 114,000 retail outlets. It also publishes 77 of its own magazines, mostly enthusiast titles. Yet co-CEO Jim Gillis said the company was just doing what it must do in terminating independent dealers.

[He told writer Bob Simmons] Bellingham's too far north. So is Seattle, so is Portland. Too far from Source-Interlink's West Coast distribution center in Ontario, California. Gillis says the company can no longer make money serving the independents on this corner of the map. His company will — no surprise — keep supplying our region's Wal-Marts, Barnes & Nobles, and other chain store retailers, even if they're a buck's worth of gas father from the Southern California warehouse.

"That's different," Gillis says. "Those are specialty retailers, and the publishers will help pay our shipping costs to their loading docks. They won't subsidize the shipping to the smaller guys."

[Photo by Bob Simmons]