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Post by trailboss on Nov 17, 2017 17:03:04 GMT -5
Kramers Pipe & Tobacco Shop
November 5 at 10:53am
To our Friends and Loyal Customers:
With saddened hearts, we want to let you know that, after 68 years in the same Beverly Hills location, our family owned business, Kramer's Pipe & Tobacco Shop, will be closing its doors December 31.
It is bitter-sweet for Jim and me, but times change and we are looking forward.
We are forever grateful to the Glassell and the Tronstein families, our landlords for 65 years, their care and friendship meant the world to my parents and to us.
They were an important part of building and preserving the village of Beverly Hills, which was referred to in a recent Beverly Hills Courier editorial, ending with "Despite all the rhetoric, about Beverly Hills being a 'village', there is very little 'village' left."
Our decision was made, and made easier for us to accept, due to many factors:
1) CA state Tobacco Taxes (now 67% - which lumps together pipe tobacco & cigars with cigarettes. What other legal product do we tax so high?) causing people to buy out of state - over the internet. (It appears that marijuana will be taxed at a lower rate in CA come January!)
2) new pending FDA regulations which would make it nearly impossible for small shops to blend pipe tobacco,
3) both city and state restrictions/legislations – that, in our opinion, unfortunately have gone way overboard in their rulings regarding, again, a legal product,
4) the city deeming it necessary for construction purposes, and seemingly their only choice, to remove our on-street metered parking since the beginning of this year - turning Little Santa Monica into a virtual freeway - to the total dismay of small businesses lining our street,
and mostly 5) the end of our lease.
One saving grace is my father's 7 private house pipe tobacco blends (from the early 1950's) now having a new life (with our exact formulas and same blending tobaccos) on-line at smokingpipes.com under Kramer's Pipe and Tobacco. Sykes Wilford, Rick Newcombe, and Brian Levine - you gave my father's legacy a chance to live on.
Good-byes are too hard. I know we will see many of you. And we are keeping our website (kramerstobaccoshop.com), email (kramerstobaccoshop@prodigy.net), and our Facebook page (Kramers Pipe & Tobacco Shop) going.
Thank you from the depths of our hearts - and my parents' hearts - for your support and loyalty.
With a flood of warm memories of our neighbors, salespeople, customers, and friends throughout the years ~
Big Thanks,
Marsha Kramer Keller and Jim Keller
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Post by Deleted on Nov 17, 2017 18:27:19 GMT -5
Bummer.
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Post by That Falls Guy on Nov 17, 2017 19:01:25 GMT -5
At the rate they're going, there isn't going to be very much left in California pretty soon! It's a damn shame.
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Post by Ronv69 on Nov 17, 2017 19:09:13 GMT -5
At the rate they're going, there isn't going to be very much left in California pretty soon! It's a damn shame. Plenty of granola. |
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Post by Nevadablue on Nov 17, 2017 19:42:33 GMT -5
Sad. The hills of Beverly don't seem a good place for a tobacco shop these days. Guess that is true. They could have shifted to mary jane and made a killing and bought the property I bet. Sad...
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Post by trailboss on Nov 17, 2017 20:36:45 GMT -5
At the rate they're going, there isn't going to be very much left in California pretty soon! It's a damn shame. I lived there for 25 years, things got progressively worse and worse....glad I escaped. |
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Post by papipeguy on Nov 17, 2017 21:04:49 GMT -5
Sad news indeed. Another fabled institution goes away.
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duffer
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Post by duffer on Nov 17, 2017 22:44:39 GMT -5
Hate to see this. Can’t compete with tax like that
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sablebrush52
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Post by sablebrush52 on Nov 18, 2017 4:01:19 GMT -5
They were facing two problems, the biggest of which was renewal of their lease. Given that rents in LA are skyrocketing and there is no end in sight, plus the loss of street parking, which kills smaller businesses, they made the right decision. That they survived as long as they did is a testimony to their tenacity. They were sitting on very expensive property and didn't own the building. There isn't a lot of money in pipes and pipe tobaccos anymore. The money is in cigars, and there's no shortage of that. So they will keep their online presence and make money from the licensing of their blends, a lot more of a return for a lot less headache.
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Post by Lady Margaret on Nov 18, 2017 8:19:47 GMT -5
sad to hear of them closing their physical presence, but at least the legacy will live on virtually.
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Post by sparks on Nov 18, 2017 8:52:24 GMT -5
Sad to hear for sure. Glad their blends will live on.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 18, 2017 14:59:37 GMT -5
The reality being what it is, there should be some good buys that final week of business, for those in the area.
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Post by PhantomWolf on Nov 18, 2017 16:11:00 GMT -5
The world sucks a little more each day. Gentrification and the ever expanding bureaucracy of the nanny state... Soon there will be nothing in this world that hasn't had the mystery, integrity or life squeezed from it. One day we will all live in uniform grey high-rises overlooking one big damned parking lot.
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Post by PhantomWolf on Nov 18, 2017 16:13:01 GMT -5
On a lighter note, I look forward to giving the Kramer blends a try. haha
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Post by Deleted on Nov 18, 2017 16:17:59 GMT -5
Gentrification is good and needed in some areas. Like all things it goes awry when it absorbs areas that are thriving, but more proletariat than new. In Saint Louis we had a Chinatown up until the mid-sixties. No one my age really remembers it. Busch Stadium (the 1967 Cookie Cutter version) sat on top of it. Often, it's why I use my pen name. Not happy being a distant Busch.
Though the stadium was a physical improvement, what did it get us? Higher Prices. Parking Scalpers. Though there is a Chinese Community here, much was devastated and their is no core area like a Chinatown. Thanks, Auggie
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Post by Deleted on Nov 18, 2017 16:51:17 GMT -5
The idea of Beverly Hills being a victim of gentrification is kind of hilarious, though. It's pretty much been one of the most elite, expensive places to live on the planet since the 1930s or so.
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Post by PhantomWolf on Nov 18, 2017 17:48:28 GMT -5
Gentrification is good and needed in some areas. Like all things it goes awry when it absorbs areas that are thriving, but more proletariat than new. In Saint Louis we had a Chinatown up until the mid-sixties. No one my age really remembers it. Busch Stadium (the 1967 Cookie Cutter version) sat on top of it. Often, it's why I use my pen name. Not happy being a distant Busch. Though the stadium was a physical improvement, what did it get us? Higher Prices. Parking Scalpers. Though there is a Chinese Community here, much was devastated and their is no core area like a Chinatown. Thanks, Auggie David, the down side is that it ruins genuine communities. It sucks the life and romance out of a place and turns it into Disneyland. Nothing is worse than seeing ones favourite bar being turned into a TGI Friday's.. |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 18, 2017 17:56:46 GMT -5
Gentrification is good and needed in some areas. Like all things it goes awry when it absorbs areas that are thriving, but more proletariat than new. In Saint Louis we had a Chinatown up until the mid-sixties. No one my age really remembers it. Busch Stadium (the 1967 Cookie Cutter version) sat on top of it. Often, it's why I use my pen name. Not happy being a distant Busch. Though the stadium was a physical improvement, what did it get us? Higher Prices. Parking Scalpers. Though there is a Chinese Community here, much was devastated and their is no core area like a Chinatown. Thanks, Auggie David, the down side is that it ruins genuine communities. It sucks the life and romance out of a place and turns it into Disneyland. Nothing is worse than seeing ones favourite bar being turned into a TGI Friday's.. I agree, but here in Saint Louis, some of the gentrified neighborhoods were total slums. As I mentioned, what Busch Stadium did to our Chinatown was way wrong, done decades before anyone cared. I used to deliver to mom and pop stores. I loved going into those neighborhoods. Some, though, declined to the point they would not keep a single place of business viable and the houses were blighted. So, I do agree with what you say, just with exceptions |
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Post by PhantomWolf on Nov 18, 2017 18:02:40 GMT -5
Also, I am admittedly jaded on the subject. Pittsburgh is the current capitol of gentrification. When the mills closed, the people left. We went from something like the 6th largest city in America to 40-something. When those people left, we stayed. Recently a very successful campaign has revitalized the city. Great for a few, but the average Pittsburgher over the last decade has seen their rent triple. The real driving force behind gentrification is for a few fat cats to make a buck. What happens is the artists, musicians, writers etc settle in rough neighborhoods because it's where they can afford to live. The result is that it becomes a hip place to be. The hipsters find you first and the yuppies follow the hipsters and with them comes their trust funds... The next stage is Albert Q Moneybags takes notice and buys up all the cheap land block by block and installs starbucks' and those little bistros where everyone wears a fedora and takes selfies while enjoying 20$ hamburgers and 9$ beers. -The artists and the soul has long since left. They have found a new neighborhood where they will await Albert Q and his millions to strike in another 5-6 years.
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Post by PhantomWolf on Nov 18, 2017 18:04:20 GMT -5
I agree with ya to a point, David. Some areas really do just need it. Sucks when it's your home though. And the day comes when you just can't afford to live in your home any longer.
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sablebrush52
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Post by sablebrush52 on Nov 18, 2017 18:52:04 GMT -5
The one constant is change. The only permanent state is impermanence. Enjoy what you can, while you can, 'cause nothing lasts forever.
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