Of Bans and Bookshops - An Open Letter

Dear Ryan/BookShop Santa Cruz Management,

This is a request on my part to be added to your list of individuals banned from Bookshop Santa Cruz, as it is a mere accident of timing that I haven't been participating in the recent round of protests, and I have provided significant logistical support at various points to these activities and thus by the logic of your decisions in other cases deserve to be banned as well. I've been meaning to write this letter for a while, but comments elsewhere about the protest finally motivated me to take action.

I find your attempt to connect the organizers of the protest to the unfortunate and deplorable incidents of vandalism at Bookshop Santa Cruz absurd, and your decision to ban two of my activist friends, Becky Johnson and Bernard Klitzner, from the premises, even more so... and thus, in response, I've ceased patronizing your store, and will not venture on the premises again (at least until the ban on these individuals and Robert Norse, as well, is lifted).

This I do, despite the fact that until you took this action, I was perfectly willing to continue shopping at your store - even knowing that my friend and activist associate Robert Norse was banned from the premises: once is an anomaly, three times and counting is clearly a policy. If you look at your records (I'm sure some record is preserved with my Readers account), you'll see that I patronized your store many times over the years (spending hundreds of dollars in the process), and even quite recently (several times in the last year). A significant proportion of the technical books I've acquired in support of my computer consulting efforts have been purchased at your shop over the years, and whatever "disposable" income I have is very likely to go towards books, ahead of anything else.

To demonstrate, the one thing my mother and I did together on a recent weekend visit was go on a book buying expedition downtown. We were in quest of Richard Rothstein's latest book, "Class and Schools — Using Social, Economic, and Educational Reform to Close the Black-White Achievement Gap", after it was mentioned on an email list run my local education activists. To demonstrate my book addiction, I wound up spending $20 at Logos before I escaped the premises - I just couldn't resist the temptation. :)

Why was I at Logos? Because of your decision to ban Bernard and Becky. Otherwise, we would have gone straight to the Bookshop. Where did I go next? Borders, which I normally refuse to patronize. Note: I did not buy anything there. Where did we go next? Your store - but as I explained to my mother, I'm no longer comfortable patronizing your business, so I escorted her to the threshold and waited outside. Where, as I said, I will remain, until such time as the ban on Becky, Bernard and Robert is lifted.

Your formerly loyal customer,
Thomas Leavitt

P.S. Let me make it clear - while this action was precipitated by Bookshop management's decision to ban Bernard and Becky from the premises, I have in no way been ignoring Ryan's support of Santa Cruz's unconscionable, unconstitutional and inhumane ban on sleeping. How he squares his positions on this and other local issues with his support for civil liberties and civil rights elsewhere is beyond me. Why our local City Council can't find a way to ensure that every resident of the town has a safe and legal place to sleep - SOMEWHERE (not "anywhere"), is beyond me.

Nor do I find it anything but completely acceptable political practice to engage in a protest aimed at a politican's business - I myself have paid quite a steep economic price over the years for my personal and political points of view, including as a result of my association with Robert Norse, I'm sure. This is part of the price you pay for participation in the public square - people make business decisions every day that are based on values and principles, as well as on economics (witness the entire field of "socially responsible investing").

For Ryan (or the Santa Cruz Sentinel) to claim a pass for the Bookshop is ridiculous... even more so, given the extremely limited scope of the protest (a few hours at most, on Sunday afternoons) and the fact that the protestors even acknowledge that most people will continue to patronize the Bookshop and in that case merely encourage people to communicate their support for changing the city's policies with regards to homelessness to Ryan through the bookstore. Ryan's actions in response to the protests have probably generated more attention for it than all the protestor's actions combined, and in turn, have probably caused more harm to the Bookshop's reputation and business, than all the calls by Robert Norse for a boycott over the last decade.