It's taken 4 1/2 long, painful years for Blockbuster to go from 95 stores in the Bay Area to zero. The last three, in San Pablo, Redwood City and Concord, along with its remaining 300 stores, DVD by mail operations and distribution centers across the country, were told they would be closing this week.
"We started closing Monday," said a store clerk at the Blockbuster store on El Camino Real in Redwood City, which has been there since 1996. A store manager in San Pablo said he had heard nothing about it. "No comment," said an employee at the Concord store on Willow Pass Road.
Dish Network, which acquired Blockbuster for $320 million in 2011, said all stores would be closed by early January and its Blockbuster by Mail service shut down in mid-December. Approximately 3,000 employees are losing their jobs.
"This is not an easy decision, yet consumer demand is clearly moving to digital distribution of video entertainment," said Dish CEO Joseph Clayton.
Well, yes, which is why the satellite company bought the video rental chain in the first place, thinking the tie-in would compete with the likes of Netflix and Redbox, another DVD rental and digital streaming service.
Clearly that hasn't worked out, which Dish has known for some time, having shed Blockbuster assets piecemeal over the past 18 months, leaving all but the brand - which Dish will keep on some of its streaming services - plus Blockbuster's huge video library.
"We expect to leverage that brand as we continue to expand our digital offerings," said Clayton.
Meanwhile, "we're having a liquidation sale, selling everything," said the Blockbuster clerk in Redwood City, who did not wish to be identified. ("I don't want to be fired today.")
Source or saucy? Listen up, independent booksellers: Amazon has a deal for you.
You sell our Kindles in your neighborhood store, and we'll give you a 10 percent cut of whatever e-book a Kindle purchaser buys from Amazon for the first two years.
"Customers don't have to choose between e-books and their favorite neighborhood bookstore - they can have both," said Amazon Kindle VP Russ Grandinetti. And your favorite neighborhood bookstore makes a little extra money on the side.
The online Goliath calls the program Amazon Source. Brick-and-mortar Davids might call it chutzpah.
"Hmm, let's see. Amazon engages in predatory pricing, sells books below cost, bullies publishers for better discounts, and has engaged in a decade-long fight to avoid sales tax collection," responded Hut Landon, executive director of the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association. "And now it wants to give bookstores the opportunity to sell Kindles so the company can gain access to their customers and lure them to the Amazon dark side. Wow, how can we pass that up?"
Amazon says it's a win-win. "For many years, bookstores have successfully sold print books on Amazon - now Amazon Source extends this opportunity to digital," said Grandinetti.
"It's got nothing to lose, especially if there are enough rubes out there," said a somewhat skeptical Michael Tucker, co-owner of Books Inc., where you can buy Kobe brand tablets. "This is not some sort of rapprochement." (https://source.amazon.com).
Showing the money: California's rapprochement with Amazon is showing financial results.
The state collected $263.4 million in sales tax from Amazon and other out-of-state online retailers in the first year of California's online sales tax. The amounts have grown quarter by quarter, and should top $100 million in this holiday quarter.
S.F. Housing 101: More and more housing is being built in San Francisco, yet the prices keep going up. Is there a way out of the conundrum?
There'll be some suggestions - which not everyone will agree with - at a forum presented by the Urban Institute for Development and Economic Alternatives Thursday evening at the San Francisco LGBT Community Center, 1800 Market St.
Housing experts and advocates, including former San Francisco Supervisor and Planning Commission President Christina Olague, are among the panelists. Allocated seating is already spoken for, but there may be cancellations and there is some standing room.
Information at www.brownpapertickets.com/event/487676.
Going up: Under construction next door to the LGBT Center, at 55 Laguna St., is a 110-unit affordable housing project for LGBT seniors, developed by Openhouse and Mercy Housing California.
It's part of a complex on the former UC Extension site that will contain 330 more multifamily rental units, 50 of which will be below market rent.
Andrew S. Ross is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. E-mail: bottomline@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @andrewsross
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