Making top news here in San Francisco and the Bay Area is the fact that the bookstore chain Borders has announced that it has filed for bankruptcy.
The book chain will be closing down 200 of its 642 stores around the country, says Borders spokeswoman Mary Davis, according to InsideBayArea. That number will include 12 Borders superstore bookshops in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Borders filed for bankruptcy protection on Wednesday, Feb. 16, 2011.
San Francisco Bay Area resident Kathleen Jackson said, "I am so sorry to hear this. There is something about browsing through books at a leisurely pace in your local Borders store that can't be obtained from reading on a portable machine," she says. "I am really going to miss my local bookstore."
The 40-year-old company had put many small mom-and-pop enterprises out of business, says InsideBayArea, but now the giant is in trouble itself because it has massive debt and has not been fast enough to react to an industry that is changing quickly.
So how does this affect San Francisco and the Bay Area? The Borders plans mean that 12 stores will close down. That number will include two stores in San Jose, those in Santana Row and Oakridge Mall, and two in the city of San Francisco itself.
Elsewhere in the Bay Area, Borders will close in Los Gatos, Alameda, Fremont, Pleasanton, San Mateo, San Ramon, Santa Cruz and also in Union City. Moreover, Borders stores in Stockton and Modesto will shut down.
Interested San Francisco residents looking for bargains should check out the stores that are closing down this coming weekend. The dates for the stores actually turning the lights out for good will be throughout the upcoming weeks, stated the company, according to InsideBayArea.
Borders is alleged to be losing $2 million a day at the stores that will be closing.
Borders also runs several smaller Waldenbooks and Borders Express stores.
San Francisco and Bay Area residents now want to know which stores will stay open, and those are: Milpitas, Sunnyvale, Palo Alto, Emeryville, Pleasant Hill, and Stonestown in San Francisco. The Borders in Capitola store will also remain in business.
Borders Group Inc. President Mike Edwards, in a written statement, told why the closures were necessary: "Cautious consumer spending, negotiations with publishers and other vendors and a lack of liquidity made it clear Borders 'does not have the capital resources it needs to be a viable competitor,'" says InsideBayArea.
For those San Francisco residents with gift cards, Borders will continue to honor them.
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Comments
So sad to hear that Borders had to file for bankruptcy. Wished more people enjoy the art of reading from a book rather than in electronic format. Reading from print is more portable. Also, we save money and electricity (from batteries, too), eyesight, neck pains, frozen shoulders.......
Browsing through bookshelves in a bookstore and in a library, one finds many more interesting other books......
It's the end of an era, shame
that is bad new indeed
wow, and I love books and Border, am sad about this
Dang!
I already went to the Border's on Post Street but didn't see any bargains. What was on sale was the picked over remains from Christmas/New Years. I will be sorry to see them go because I've found magazines there that I can't find anywhere else. In fact, I think they are the last book store left in downtown SF - which used to be full of bookstores. Sad sad sad.
"Interested San Francisco residents looking for bargains should check out the stores that are closing down this coming weekend."
Thanks, Sheila - However, it would be helpful if you included WHICH SF stores are closing so we could in fact go look for bargains!!!
Hi check out the Borders that is closing at Union Square/Powell. Their sales started on Saturday. Prices are 20-40 percent off.
im not shedding any tears, here, and neither should you. as sheila said, this corp giant has put countless mom & pop shops out of business over the last 40 years!!! if you want to do something good for your community, stop trying to save $2 by buying books online and start patronizing shops in your own neighborhoods. help your community as opposed to putting even more money in the pockets of these corp fat cats that care less about you than their bottom line.
They fired me because I had a lot of deaths in my family and they didn't want to pay me no more . we'll I'm glad it's going OUT- of- BUSSINESS. Because they did me wrong.
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