A sharp decline in sales beginning this summer is the
“Grinch” that will force downtown’s Thinker Toys to close after
Christmas, according to owners Brad Jones and Cinda Meister. At the
same time, the couple’s Love Bug gift store will also shut its
doors, they said.
A sharp decline in sales beginning this summer is the “Grinch” that will force downtown’s Thinker Toys to close after Christmas, according to owners Brad Jones and Cinda Meister.
At the same time, the couple’s Love Bug gift store will also shut its doors, they said.
“In hindsight, we never should have opened it,” Jones said Monday. “It just never had the foot traffic.”
The small store, tucked next to Jones’ and Meister’s BookSmart on the corner of Monterey Road and Second Street, sells cards, wrapping paper and novelty gift items.
Thinker Toys, located in the middle of the next block south of the bookstore, has been flourishing for years, according to Jones, selling “classic” toys, such as yo-yos, gyroscopes and marbles, plus European Brio train sets and educational toys, and traditional stuffed animals, dolls, balls and jump ropes.
“When you can sit in the parking lot of the Wal-Mart in Gilroy and watch Morgan Hill people going in and coming out, you don’t have to look far to see the reason,” Jones said. “This summer, when you had all the grand openings there, all these new stores, then you saw sales cut in half, well, the writing was on the wall. In September, our sales couldn’t pay our rent.”
Jones and Meister also own Caffee Kaffee Vin, a restaurant across the street from BookSmart.
“The numbers are not quite as good as we would like,” Meister said of the restaurant, “but it’s improving.”
Ultimately, she said, what they would like to do is find one location for all their businesses.
“We’d like to have everything under one roof,” she said. “It’s the only way to remain viable. We’ve been looking for a place for 2 1/2 years, and nothing has worked out.”
While they are devoted downtown supporters and residents, if they can’t find what they’re looking for in that area but do find it somewhere else, they’ll have to move BookSmart, a longtime downtown anchor store.
There are things, Jones said, that the community could do to keep downtown Morgan Hill alive and keep other stores from closing.
“This community, this city, has passed on many chances to create a more viable downtown,” he said. “For example, the Granada Theater, it could have been our community theater. Another project, making the traffic one lane each way. That’s not costly. You could even try a block, say from First to Second Street, as a test.”
Also hurting the downtown is what Jones called the “decentralization” of community services: locating the Aquatic Center on the northeast end of town, the Indoor Recreation Center to the south end of the city, while planning to build the new library also out of the downtown.
“Whether this was the intention of the City Council or not, what we have is a decentralized community, instead of having a city center,” Jones said.
Marilyn Dubil covers education and law enforcement for The Times. Reach her at (408) 779-4106 ext. 202 or at md****@mo*************.com.
