AURORA — There was a time when newsstands and shops that sold magazines and newspapers were important places for folks to get their news and entertainment fixes.
That time is not now, and Bill Heasty can attest to that.
He once owned five Newsland stores throughout the metro area. They were places where folks could stroll down aisles and read The Sunday Telegram out of Ireland, magazines about the latest hot rods and souped-up trucks, and even a back issue of Playboy.
Soon, Heasty will have only one Newsland. Next week, he’s closing the Aurora shop on Chambers Road just south of East Iliff Avenue, a store he’s owned for more than a quarter- century.
Now he’s left with only his Westminster store on Federal Boulevard.
Blame the Internet. Blame the economy. Blame the fact that folks just aren’t reading as much as they used to.
Whatever the reason, patrons say Aurora and the metro area are losing an institution.
“I’ve been coming here for 20 years,” said Jerry Richards, who was looking at vintage-car magazines at the Aurora Newsland. “I hate to see it go, I really do.”
Heasty said he has little choice. The owner of the property is bulldozing his building and constructing a drive-through carwash. He offered Heasty a chance to relocate farther from Chambers at a higher rent. But Heasty says he’d lose 25 percent or more in sales and would not pick up many new customers with a store that was hidden in a strip mall.
So now he’s banking on his Westminster shop, hoping that he can make one last stand in this age in which people get their news on the computer and entertainment with video games.
“It’s like drive-in theaters,” Heasty said. “There’s one left here in the metropolitan area. The pendulum has swung. I kinda feel sad about that.”
At one time, he would carry about 150 Sunday papers from throughout the country and sell most of them. At his Aurora store alone, Heasty said, he would sell about 100 Sunday Los Angeles Times each week.
Now, he’s lucky to sell one or two between the Aurora and Westminster stores combined.
“Any big city in any state, we carried that paper,” he said.
Patrons will have to find other places to get their newspapers and magazines. They probably won’t go to big chain bookstores because those don’t have the nostalgic feel that Newsland does, some said.
“We’re losing that part of the culture,” said Stan Carradine, who was browsing magazines about trucks and cars at the Aurora store. “Every time I come in, you see something different.”
Ellie Riser has no idea where she will get her Games Magazine. Newsland was the only place she knew that stocked the magazine, which is filled with crossword puzzles, word searches and much more.
“They shouldn’t be closing,” she said.
Heasty said he’ll miss the relationships he’s built with his customers, many of whom have come in a couple of times a month for 20 years or more. But he hopes some will follow him to the Westminster store.
“I like the business. I like the customers. They are unique and friendly people,” Heasty said. “I’ve spent 25 years of my life running this business.”
