Sixteen years after it was founded in the basement beneath a restaurant in one of Tacoma’s oldest neighborhoods, Stadium Video will close next month.
Blame a simple lack of consumer demand for in-store video-rentals. Like Borders with books or Marty Campbell’s own Buzzard’s Music with its vinyl and compact discs, markets are born, markets die and markets evolve as technologies spawn revolutions.
Loyal customers lament the passing of a commercial icon.
But at the beginning, it seemed like one of those places that would go on forever.
SWAP MEET SALES
Marty Campbell grew up on a small Nebraska farm and was educated in a two-room school through the sixth grade. After a year spent studying economics at the University of Nebraska, he went on to join Marriott Hotels in Kansas City, Mo., and then moved to Sea-Tac. There he met a co-worker who shared an entrepreneurial spirit.
“There was a small CD-trading store in Kansas City,” Campbell said. “I thought it was the coolest place.”
He had once asked the owner a question that later informed one of the biggest decisions the future Tacoma City Council member would make.
“I asked him about the business, and he said, ‘I started it out of my garage.’ It hadn’t occurred to me that you could start a business out of a garage. I took $50, went to a pawn shop and bought 50 used CDs.”
These he sold to fellow employees and other folks who lived in his apartment complex.
He and a partner continued buying low and selling for a profit, and expanded their operation by attending swap meets.
They landed at the Starlight Drive-In in South Tacoma and worked only on weekends. They’d set up their booth and begin buying and selling.
“We were two guys having fun,” Campbell said.
They decided to expand into video tapes. Their goal at the time was to expand their own collections, not necessarily make a profit.
A few years later, they came across a small video store in North Tacoma that was about to close.
“We had just spent another cold winter,” Campbell said. “Winter at a swap meet sucks. We saw this as an opportunity to grow some of our stock and to have weekday sales, with the side benefit of video rentals as a revenue stream.”
The store was called Stadium Video.
BUILDING AN ETHOS
Customers regularly told Campbell that Stadium Video was one of the reasons they lived in the Stadium District.
“We’d be open on Thanksgiving, and people would bring in their leftovers,” he said. “We were really a part of the community.”
He had some rules.
“I did things the way I thought they should be done. I treated customers the way I wanted to be treated. I wanted to be fair, and I wanted to have fun.”
The store closed daily at 11:03 p.m. “We say that sometimes customers need that extra three minutes,” he said. “Actually, I’ve stayed and helped customers at 1:30. Frequently we were open until midnight.”
Staff members decorated a door behind the counter with cut-up plastic shards of loyalty cards issued by other video stores – Blockbuster, Home Video Express, Hollywood Video and a dozen others.
“In the late ’90s, I was 26, and I went to a conference with other store owners. We were at a symposium. Another owner in the audience said there was a store in Tacoma that was cutting up cards, and he said it was disrespectful.”
“I thought, ‘Oh my God, I do know what I’m doing.’ ”
CUSTOMERS
“There’s not going to be anywhere where you can walk in and find what you’re looking for. Here, you can find it,” said Lindsay Westnedge, Stadium Video manager and an employee for 10 years. “Before I worked here, I was a customer. I loved coming in here. People come in and chat.”
She, along with six-year employee Ethan Abraham, have been out looking for new positions.
And customers will be looking for a new source of movies.
“There’s not a good alternative,” said Chris Sharp, a regular of 10 years.
“I’m very, very disappointed,” said Peter Grosvenor, a customer and professor of political science at Pacific Lutheran University. “Stadium Video has a range of selections that go so far beyond current releases to encompass classics, cult films, foreign films. It simply offers a range of choices you wouldn’t expect to find in a video store in a city the size of Tacoma. I really think it will leave a big hole.”
“It has been one of the places where Peter and I both have recommended when we met new people,” said Solveig Robinson, Grosvenor’s wife and an English professor at PLU.
“Stadium was a place that expanded your vision,” she said.
MOVIES, AND SO GOODBYE
“Fargo” was the biggest surprise, Campbell said. “Pulp Fiction” has been one of the best sellers. Everybody eventually came to enjoy “The Big Lebowski” and “Office Space.”
No local collection rivals Stadium’s stock of Criterion films.
“I always wanted to compete with Blockbuster head-to-head,” Campbell said. “And we wanted to have the stuff that no Blockbuster had, and a knowledgeable staff.”
When he closed Buzzard’s a year ago, Campbell read again an unsigned postcard he’d received months before from a customer, who wrote: “I downloaded my first song off the Internet today and I’ll never have to buy a CD again. Good luck and so long.”
“When I left,” Campbell said, “I tore it up and left it on the floor. How do you compete with free?”
And how do you compete with a technology that offers delivery of movies at the press of a few buttons?
Although the store’s other local and state tax obligations are up to date, Stadium Video does owe $12,134 in personal property taxes to Pierce County. According to the Budget and Finance Office, the back taxes began accruing in 2009.
“That is one of the first checks I’m going to write,” Campbell said.
Campbell said the operation of Stadium Video began costing him money months ago. He noted profits beginning to decline four years ago.
“There was not one moment when I made the decision,” he said. “It came on gradually. You keep looking for indicators that could justify staying open.”
Campbell said he plans to take a break from retail. He’ll continue on the council, and he’d like somehow to help entrepreneurs and small-business owners.
Since last autumn, Campbell and other members of the council have been dealing with a citywide budget shortfall.
And now his own store is closing.
“This will be the hardest six months of my life,” he said.
C.R. Roberts: 253-597-8535
c.r.roberts@thenewstribune.com
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