Tucson Loses Another Small Purveyor Of Class. By Emil Franzi Tucson is about to lose another of its commercial cultural institutions, Jeff's Classical Records. Like The Haunted Bookshop, Jeff's will close at the end of June. After more than 20 years, current owners Brian Mathie and Bill Luckhardt are throwing in the towel. "There are more and more slices coming from basically the same pie," says Mathie. "Call it the four B's--Barnes & Noble, Best Buy, Blockbuster and Border's," adds Luckhardt. For Jeff's, there's even a fifth B, Bookman's, whose two locations now compete in the used recording area. The problem with small business in a population-growth economy is exemplified by both Jeff's and Haunted--the competition grows faster than the population. Both had done business for more than 20 years, both had built a loyal cadre of customers, both provided a reasonable selection, and both provided services unavailable elsewhere. Yet they were ultimately surrounded and forced to surrender. There are a number of reasons, some unique to Jeff's. Much of the shop was--and still is--devoted to a massive collection of new, used and rare LPs. The collector interest in black discs, while still present, has hardly grown in the years since CDs came into wide use. Many collectors have discovered most of what they once paid a premium for on vinyl has been reissued on CD for lower cost in a better format. And sales of new classical CDs are off, mainly because most major recording companies keep re-issuing the same war horses most classical listeners already have. Listeners just aren't willing to pay $15 or more for a new version that sounds pretty much the same as many others. Jeff's and similar operations, like The Haunted Bookshop, are also facing stiffer competition from mail-order catalogs as well as record and book clubs. And bookstores have to fight off everything from the Costco-type operations to supermarkets while competing for your book-buying dollar. Jeff's is named for its original owner, Jeff Weinstein, who started the store in 1976. It's moved several times since. Weinstein sold the store in 1991 to his two employees, Mathie and Luckhardt, went off to law school at the UA and landed a job as a Pima County public defender. Like The Haunted Bookshop and other specialty stores, Jeff's offered a wealth of services and free information beyond special orders. "On a good day we'd probably get more information calls than the public library," says Mathie. "A lot of it went beyond music--people would want to know who starred in a movie after hearing a film score on KUAT, that sort of thing." Try that at Blockbuster, folks. And customers long familiar with Jeff's knew the owners would hold records or CDs for as long as 30 days, until you had the cash or your plastic balance went down--there's a whole section behind the counter devoted to that custom. That's something the Four Bs may never do for you. While the demise of both Jeff's and The Haunted Bookshop can't be attributed entirely to the growth-at-any-cost mania sweeping Tucson, it's clearly a contributing factor. As the population grows, we become a magnet for the big, impersonal outlets. They have a competitive edge in larger buying power, enabling them to acquire stock at prices way below the small independents. Good, say some--that means lower prices. Not really--it just means smaller profits for the smaller merchant. You can have price, quality or service. Pick two out of three--no way you get them all. While we may save a few bucks on some items, the service and, ultimately, our choices have been restricted. Jeff's half-price sale on all LPs and books has already begun. Some fixtures and racks will be on sale, too. Stop in and say good-bye to another local institution. Where will Brian and Bill go now? To find jobs in one of those big book or record stores, they say. Who says Tucson doesn't believe in recycling? Photo by Sean Justice

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