The end of the road for A Clean, Well-Lighted Place

Last night marked the end of an era in San Francisco bookselling. After 24 years at its Opera Plaza location, A Clean, Well-Lighted Place for Books will no longer be. As the SF Chronicle’s Heidi Benson finds out, a lack of pedestrian traffic on Van Ness Avenue added an extra burden to the challenges facing independent bookshops: competition from chain stores and online retailers, and changing consumer habits.

“It’s the passing of an era,” said owner Neal Sofman. “It may be that the golden age of bookselling is past. Now, it is a much more corporate phenomenon.”

The good news is that another branch of the local independent chain Books Etc. will take its place in the same location. And Sofman has moved on, too: is new shop, Bookstore West Portal, which opened early this month, is already drawing crowds to its author events.

“Despite the challenges, San Francisco remains one of the strongest independent book markets in the country,” said Oren Teicher, CEO of the American Booksellers Association. “There is still an extraordinary range of stores making it work in San Francisco.”

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