Lee Kaplan owns Arcana Books, the last used bookstore on Santa Monica's
Third Street Promenade. (Jason Kehe)

When Lee Kaplan opened Arcana Books On The Arts on Santa Monica's then-pathetic Third Street Promenade 22 years ago, there were at least another 10 used bookstores within a three-block radius.

The Promenade was a ghost strip back then, a run-down walking mall with several vitamin shops and no commerce after 6 p.m. -- nothing like the overcrowded franchise mecca it is today. Spaces were big and rent was cheap.

Today, Arcana is the only bookstore left on the Promenade, and one of only a few remaining in Santa Monica.

In a little more than two decades, a once-thriving cultural movement has all but up and vanished. The used bookstore, once a staple of Santa Monica's streets, is dying, or already dead.

"It used to be that every great city, every lesser city, had a couple of really good big used bookstores, primarily like in the downtown district," Kaplan said. "And that's all just going away."

One might think Santa Monica, a city known for its creativity, progressivism and coffeehouse intellectualism, would be spared the inexorable march of technology and commercialization, but no. Perhaps because it was such an intellectually conscious culture to begin with -- Westside still retains its reputation as a bastion of liberalism -- Santa Monica now stands out more than ever for the number of used bookstores that have failed in and around the city.

Mike Malis, a professional book scout in Santa Monica who helps bookstore owners find rare and valuable books to sell, couldn't help but notice this marked turn for the worse.

"The trend is that used bookstores have gone by the wayside," Malis said. "All the used bookstores have closed. All of them."
 
Malis might have overstated slightly -- Kaplan's store and at least two other open shops remain -- but it's essentially true.
 
Although the city seems to be clinging on to its former glory -- the cultural affairs division of Santa Monica's Web site boasts "dozens of bookstores specializing in a wide variety of topics," but can only list six, two of which are no longer operating -- the reality is that the book industry is "in a state of chaos," according to Rocco Ingala, owner of Angel City Books & Records, a general used bookstore on Pier Avenue.

Ingala moved to Santa Monica 12 years ago from a suburb in Orange County because he thought his used bookstore could thrive in Santa Monica.

"I think I got here a little too late," Ingala said. "But that was the draw. As a kid, I used to always make special journeys to this part of town to seek out that culture."

Ingala recalls the olden days with a wistful smile, speaking highly of the now-extinct flagship bookstores that once dominated street corners around town.

One of the best-known bookstores in Los Angeles, Dutton's Brentwood Books, closed from Santa Monica in 2008, and Midnight Special, a main Promenade attraction, couldn't keep up with skyrocketing rent costs and had to shut its doors in 2003. Both closures incited intense public outcries.

"Everyone said it was so sad that they closed . . . but there seems to be no infrastructure to prevent people from continually raising the prices of rent," Kaplan said. "It's a free-market economy, and we live in a capitalist system, but bookstores are particularly fragile and held hostage to all of these things."

But what are "all of these things" that make it so difficult for used bookstore to pay their rents?
 
It's hard to pin down a single overarching cause of this trend, but most agree it's a culture shift away from print-and-paper books that's making economic solvency for booksellers next to impossible.

"In another 20 years, we're going to have an entire couple of generations of kids who grew up not necessarily feeling like they need to own books," Kaplan said.

The advent of the Internet has spawned a host of alternatives to so-called "physical books," including e-readers like Amazon's Kindle, a powerful device that can store hundreds of books and take up the same space in a tote bag as one paperback.

Some book-buying regulars in Santa Monica aren't impressed.

"I know we're all using Amazon.com and some of the others, but used bookstores are really a great place to find treasure," said Richard Ginnold, an Oakland resident who tries to make it to Ingala's shop when he can. "I think that intellectuals have to have a place to go, and where are they going to go if the only thing they can do is Google Amazon.com?"

It's a problem Kaplan runs into every week.

"People walk in here and say, 'Oh, this is a really fabulous book, I've never seen this before. But let me look on my iPhone. Oh, well you know I can get it for $40 less on Amazon, but if you'll sell it to me for the same price, I'll be happy to buy it,'" Kaplain said. "And it's like, 'No, I really can't do that.'"

Most used bookstores turn minuscule profits on their books. Ingala sells most of his mass paperbacks for less than $5. In order to pay off his rent, he works seven days a week, and has no employees.
 
"You have to be really good at it to survive," Ingala said. "There's really little space for error in this economy. I can't afford to buy books that are going to become dead weight."

Many of Santa Monica's residents -- 43 percent of whom make their living in the arts, according to a city report -- are willing to support used bookstores, even if they have to take the time to visit them and possibly pay more for books they can get cheaper online.

"I love the atmophere, and I try to support the owners whenever I can personally," said Danny Colantonio, a Marina del Rey resident who stops by Ingala's store every couple of months.
 
He and his twin brother, both professional writers, say a culture of intellectualism is important and can't be given up.

The older residents of Santa Monica are especially supportive. Many think the city is selling out to commercial industry.

Michele Perrone, a 20-year resident, said Pier Avenue is one of the few spots in Santa Monica that's retained its integrity -- minus that Verizon store down the street.
 
"This is it in Santa Monica," Perrone said as she flipped through the architecture section of Ingala's store. "What else is like this in Santa Monica? They're all big, high-end. I like to support this."

Perrone said she doesn't visit the Third Street Promenade anymore, a place even Kaplan says has "very little soul whatsoever." She didn't even know that the Borders bookstore there went out of business earlier this year. Although the problem mostly concerns used books at this point, commercial sellers clearly aren't safe either.

City officials are concerned, but short of subsidizing rent costs on behalf of these struggling owners -- not totally unheard of, but very unlikely -- the few remaining used bookstores will likely continue to fail.

Miriam Mack, the city's economic development manager, said she and her fellow residents care deeply about their community's reputation.

"Santa Monica is very, very conscious of its image," Mack said. "It has a very strong value system that is transmitted from generation to generation. I think the community plays out those issues in public forums very, very vocally."

But no amount of public rallying has seemed enough to salvage this dying industry. The city's support for cultural activities, though certainly creditable, doesn't extend to independent businesses.
 
"Unfortunately, it's a big-fish-eating-a-little-fish dynamic," Mack said. "But certainly there are niche opportunities."

Those opportunities may be the key to survival amid this catastrophic sea change.

"We have to change our concept of what an ideal bookstore is," Ingala said. "Maybe we need to specialize a little bit more, downsize the physical space, pay attention to the needs of that community, have what they need and still be able to meet your bottom line and stay alive. If you're unwilling or unable to do that, that's the danger."

Ingala is trying to make some of those changes himself. Several months ago, Malis helped him set up a section of vinyl records to sell, a smart business move that may keep Ingala above water.
 
Others, however, say that pretty soon, it will be far more lucrative not to have an open shop, but instead to put stuff in a garage or an office space and do business entirely online. Of course, that arrangement, while economically more feasible, is culturally undesirable. The experience of buying used books -- of navigating the ramshackle stores and browsing through well-worn dust jackets -- is everything, said Kaplan.

Although Kaplan's store is highly specialized -- he sells only books on film, architecture and other arts -- it's been increasingly hard to attract business. In fact, when his lease expires in two years, he won't be renewing it."

"My preference would not be to stay here under the present circumstances," Kaplan said. "I don't know if there's anything that can convince me to want to stay, certainly on the Promenade, and probably in Santa Monica.
 
He will be the last used bookseller on the Promenade to go. So what's next?

"I would like to maintain an open shop, but who knows? In another two years, it might just make sense economically not to do that, which I hate," Kaplan said. "I really like the idea of retail. I really like putting the right book in the right person's hand."