The Book Rack in Arcadia is closing down after serving the community for 40 years. Karen Kropp has worked at the store for most of that time and in the last two decades has owned the used bookstore and tried to keep it afloat.
Rising costs, including rent and utilities, have become too much for Kropp, who is approaching her 80th birthday. So, come Thursday, she'll return the keys to her landlord and officially retire.
Kropp moved to Arcadia 29 years ago to be closer to her daughter and granddaughter. An avid reader, she couldn’t borrow enough books from the library, so her daughter suggested she work at the store.
“I always wanted to be a librarian and live in a library because people talk to you there. They don’t just ignore you,” she said. “So it would be a good place to be and to still have social contact and be able to talk about things you're really interested in.”
When Pat Carlson, the original owner of the Book Rack, died, her husband Chuck sold the used bookstore to Kropp.
But, in recent years, it’s become “harder and harder” to run the business.
Kropp employed two local high school students, part-time. They worked at the Book Rack through high school, college, and are now completing their graduate degrees. Rather than hire new employees, Kropp thinks it's a good time to shut down the shop as her longtime employees move on.
County and statewide assistance programs, she said, required her to have a certain number of full-time employees to qualify and weren't really geared toward mom-and-pop stores like hers.
As for city grants, Kropp says “by the time you hear about those, sometimes, they're past their usefulness. It isn't going to save you in the end.”
She used up all her life savings— including her life insurance — to keep the place afloat. One of her employees set up a GoFundMe page. The funds raised helped for a while, but as Kropp says,”no matter how hard you try to cut corners, the cost of other things going up takes care of anything you are doing to try and save money.”
Kropp said she’s made peace with closing the bookstore, even though it was a hard decision given that it was her life for so long.
“This was my life six days a week,” she said. “Seven days a week until COVID hit.”
After she donates the last of the books remaining on Wednesday, Kropp will empty her apartment and make the move to Albuquerque to be with her little sister.
When her sister retires later this year, she plans to use her Social Security checks to travel in a RV. She says she’ll miss California and the friends and people she’s met here.
“I am ready. I have had time to grieve,” she said.
