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Book Culture Owners Split on Lending Program, Raising New Questions

September 10, 2019 | 10:38 AM
in NEWS
23

By Alex Israel

Contrary to signage and social media posts, Book Culture on Columbus is not in need of financial assistance from the neighborhood, according to co-owner John R. MacArthur.

MacArthur, who is perhaps more well-known for his role as the president and publisher of Harper’s Magazine, has been a co-owner of Book Culture on Columbus alongside founder Chris Doeblin since it was registered as a limited liability company in 2014. Beyond the Upper West Side shop (located at 450 Columbus Avenue, between 81st and 82nd Streets), Book Culture has three additional locations—two in Morningside Heights and one in Long Island City—that operate under a separate business entity, Book Culture Incorporated.

Doeblin sparked a community-wide conversation earlier this year by requesting assistance to support the independent business. In June, he first shared a public letter addressing city and state leaders, warning the business was “in danger of closing soon”; in July, he turned to the community looking for $750,000 in funding because “no city or state action [was] likely to occur soon, or at all”; in August, he told WSR he had raised $200,000 from the community, but that publishers were shrinking their lines of credit because of “their exposure to risk.”

MacArthur believes Doeblin is misleading patrons and potential lenders by using the Columbus store to raise money for a separate business, and he wants to ensure that the public is aware of where lenders are sending their cash. “Nobody seems to know that these are two separate companies,” said MacArthur during a phone interview with WSR. “And that he’s raising money on the false premise that Book Culture on Columbus is on the verge of failure when it’s not. I won’t permit it to go bankrupt.”

While the companies may technically be separate entities, Doeblin doesn’t see it that way. “The LLC started out of an opportunity to grow and a vision that my wife and I created for Book Culture,” wrote Doeblin in an email to WSR. “Book Culture Inc. is the parent company and the administrator of the LLC. All of the buying and bookkeeping, strategy, marketing etc. are provided by the parent corporation.”

“From the outset, no books would have been shipped to our LLC if our parent co and I did not back those accounts,” he wrote.

Signage posted at Book Culture on Columbus reads “Book Culture Needs Your Help!”, directing the community to “invest in a business that gives back to the community” by “becom[ing] a community lender.” The Book Culture website indicates $304,500 has been raised by 57 sponsors—41% of the way to their goal. The site asks for “a minimum loan amount of $5,000,” proposing that Book Culture will repay the loan over time with 4% interest. Neither the website nor the signage make any distinction about the separate business entities.

“I want to halt the deceptive fundraising,” said MacArthur, who has requested that Doeblin remove the signage from the Columbus storefront and update the website language to distinguish the businesses. “I don’t want ordinary, neighborhood people lending money to [Doeblin] on a false premise. In effect, they’re lending money to me, and I’m not asking for it—I don’t want it!”

Doeblin, however, sees the messaging as part of a larger issue. As a store owner, he feels a responsibility “to try and better our community” by creating awareness about the plight of independent businesses in the city. “Our LLC is getting books and merchandise and support from the Community Lender program. It is designed to help all the Book Culture stores,” wrote Doeblin, defending his communications about the program. “Because we are using the Community Lender program to support all of the stores and because this is a citywide issue I think it is important that the signage remains.”

Book Culture Inc., which was registered with New York’s Department of State in 2007 according to the Division of Corporations Entity Information database, may be in need of some financial assistance, MacArthur said. But Book Culture on Columbus was until recently doing just fine—and MacArthur is willing to contribute the funds himself to get it back to where it was.

While he was unable to provide any specifics about previous or current finances of the business, MacArthur ensured WSR that in its first few years Book Culture on Columbus operated as a relatively successful business—even turning a “tiny profit” in its third year. “Unquestionably sales have gone way down from where we were five or six months ago when we were still booming,” he went on, blaming Doeblin for a depletion in the store’s stock of books.

Doeblin affirmed the Columbus store’s initial profitability—attributing it to the “creative vision” of Book Culture Inc.—as well as its recent downturn—attributing it to the city’s hike in minimum wages. “Like all of the stores we have opened so far, the first 4 years there enjoyed very rapid growth and profitability,” he wrote. “The last year and half showed us the plateau in growth and then the sharp rise in minimum wages which pushed up expenses enormously causing losses and diminishing credit lines.”

While Doeblin said layoffs, job losses, and decline in sales are currently prevalent across all his stores, he confirmed the past success of the LLC in relation to the other locations. “We had double-digit growth for almost 4 years running at the Columbus store. By comparison there was basically no growth at our parent company’s stores during that time,” he wrote.

Per the original ownership agreement, Doeblin owns 45.96 percent of the LLC, MacArthur owns 40 percent, and Annie Hedrick (formerly the book buyer for the store, who declined to comment for this story) owns the remaining 14.04 percent.

We asked MacArthur if the store’s prior profitability is why he is willing to invest more into it.

“This is my neighborhood,” he said, describing his initial enthusiasm and investment in getting the LLC up and running on the Upper West Side in 2014. (Doeblin still values this contribution; “Mr. MacArthur’s generous financial investment was important to our opening the store on Columbus Ave,” he writes. “I remain very respectful and appreciative of that.”)

“When I started out, I didn’t want to run a bookstore. I just wanted there to be a bookstore in my neighborhood,” said MacArthur. “Now I’m trying to keep the thing going and run it properly.”

Slightly under five years after opening, MacArthur said he offered to buy Doeblin and Hedrick out of their shares of the business, and later offered to loan Doeblin the funds needed to get through the summer. They did not reach an agreement in either situation, and Doeblin moved forward with the community fundraising concept.

Doeblin attributed his rejections of MacArthur’s offers to concerns about their fairness. “I have approached him for assistance or to have him buy our share of the company but he hasn’t made a fair offer,” he wrote. “We are extremely vulnerable—but we are not going to be part of forfeiting our personal legacy, joy and what was our dream and our vision and enterprise, for next to nothing. And we aren’t going to simply abide a very wealthy family taking control of the assets of a family that lives paycheck to paycheck.”

Doeblin also feels he has put too much into the business to allow someone else to take full control. “[MacArthur] did offer to lend money but only on the condition that he take control of the store and that none of the money be used to support the other stores,” he wrote. “We built something that is an anchor and a joy to its community and we built it with a different kind of investment—the investment of our own selves. Something that so often gets lost when considering what something is worth.”

MacArthur takes offense to Doeblin’s characterizations about wealth and effort. “I’m a little bit offended, because Harper’s and I personally have put a huge amount of work into this store,” he said, listing off a series of high-profile characters from his network who he and the Harper’s team had scheduled to appear at the store.

Doeblin still plans to push forward with the community fundraising, and is looking optimistically toward the future. He says he has asked MacArthur to consider lending again, but was met with no response. “A bookstore is a good thing, just about everywhere. All the Book Culture stores are deeply meaningful and valuable to the communities they serve and we will do everything we can to keep them open.”

Despite his disagreement with Doeblin’s approach to fundraising, MacArthur says he is still doing what he can to support the store. He says he will continue to coordinate ‘Harper’s Presents’ talks and seminars, pointing to an event featuring Harper’s contributing editor Scott Horton and author Sidney Blumenthal hosted at the Columbus store as recently as last week.

MacArthur still hopes to get Book Culture on Columbus back on track towards success—and stocked shelves. “If we work out our differences and I can get control of the store, I make this promise to the neighborhood and everybody: I will pay off the debt and I will get the store back up and running the way it should be.”

Until then, his message to the community? “Lender beware.”

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UWSHebrew
UWSHebrew
3 years ago

Absolutely fantastic reporting by WSR. The deceptiveness detailed here is illuminating.

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aphasian
aphasian
3 years ago
Reply to  UWSHebrew

I second that. Bravura investigative journalism!

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Betsy
Betsy
3 years ago

This whole thing has been strange. I was in Book Culture on Columbus Friday night, and they appear not to be restocking. The shelves and tables were less than full.

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JD
JD
3 years ago

I love Book Culture…but the stock at the 114th St. location has dwindled to almost nothing. I went there the other day prepared to buy 8 to 10 books – all fairly popular titles – and left with only one. None of the others were in stock. I will continue to support this store, which adds great value to the neighborhood, but it’s becoming increasingly difficult to do so with the limited offerings it has.

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VERONICA
VERONICA
3 years ago

Having read this latest chapter, I’ll never shop in or support this store

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Evan Bando
Evan Bando
3 years ago

Doeblin says he “feels a responsibility ‘to try and better our community’ by creating awareness about the plight of independent businesses in the city.” New Yorkers already know that. What we didn’t know is that Doeblin apparently attended the trump college of business practices.

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Inculto Analfabeto
Inculto Analfabeto
3 years ago

Nope, nothing sounds scammy about any of this.

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UWS_lifer
UWS_lifer
3 years ago

Wow!! This is shocking. At first I just thought this Doeblin had a lot of chutzpah and not enough business acumen.

Now I think there might need to be an investigation into this whole mess. When your own partners are essentially accusing you of fraud and misrepresentation….well, let’s just say it’s no surprise their creditors are hedging their bets. As the old saying goes, you don’t dig yourself out of a whole by continuing to dig.

Anyway, my prediction is that this place (Columbus Ave location) is closed within 6 months or Mr. Harper McDeep Pockets buys this character out.

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ben
ben
3 years ago

Gotta love it when the co-owner of your business comes out and calls out your BS loan program. Doeblin’s still gonna spin this hard though.

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Pedestrian
Pedestrian
3 years ago

Wow! I thought the loan document was very badly drafted and decided to not to pursue it. Glad I didn’t.

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Bgeorge
Bgeorge
3 years ago

I loved Book Culture when it opened. Helpful staff, great selections. Bought quite a few books for kids as well.
But it started to change kids books looked used and dirty and they didn’t have recent books.
I love to support neighborhood stores, but when this first came out something didn’t seem right. Feel sorry for the staff, caught between a seeming financial disagreement. Shop at Shakespeare’s on B’way now and Books of Wonder for kids books…

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Carnival Canticle
Carnival Canticle
3 years ago

Thank you for updating this story. When the story first broke several months ago, I noted in Comments that John MacArthur was a co-owner of the Columbus Ave store and a logical source of funding in case the shop did indeed have a shortfall. His current statement makes Doeblin and Hedrick’s crowdfunding effort seem even more dubious. The new tack, that MacArthur hasn’t offered them enough for “forfeiting our personal legacy, joy and what was our dream and our vision and enterprise, for next to nothing” smacks of extortion.

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Adam
Adam
3 years ago

It’s been clear all along that Doeblin has a sense of entitlement and an agenda to suit his own financial and political interests. He takes advantage of neighborly UWS residents who are so eager to support a local bookstore. In this case, I don’t think Book Culture has lived up to the values it espouses and it certainly hasn’t earned our unconditional support.

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C. Wright-Thru
C. Wright-Thru
3 years ago
Reply to  Adam

It has the stench of religious affinity fraud, in this case the religions being “books” and “community”.

“If he likes books and says he wants to support the community, he can’t be a bad guy. …Can he?”

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Mary-Claire Barton
Mary-Claire Barton
3 years ago

A week or so ago, I contacted the West Side Rag and asked how to reach Book Culture because we are moving to senior living and while we are not able to contribute money, I do have dozens of new current fiction, non-fiction, children’s books, etc. and wanted to donate those instead. I phoned the store on Columbus; spoke with a young woman, who told me Chris would be very excited, but he was a few blocks away at another of their shops. So I phoned and again went through my story with another wonderful young woman who said she would put me through to him. She came back on and said he was in a meeting and could not take a call. Really?!! That early in the morning. She put me through to his phone message and I left my name; phone number; and the promise of many new books to donate which should raise some revenue. Then I phoned back and spoke to the young woman again and gave her all the info to give to Chris in case he didn’t get the message. Guess what??!! Have heard not a word from him. I now am donating my new books to the Public Library …St. Agnes branch. I would for sure look into what is going on. I suspect Denmark and something slightly smelly. mvwb

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Sadie
Sadie
3 years ago
Reply to  Mary-Claire Barton

Dear Mary-Claire,

My husband and I buy used books! I am an UWSider (and regular reader of WSR) so, while I only came on to read the neighborhood news, thought I’d say something! We can be reached at sos2ndhand@gmail.com

Sadie

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Millennial resident
Millennial resident
3 years ago

I was hoping to support book culture by buying books – but their stock seemed to more than halve the day the email about the lending campaign went out, almost to convince customers of the issue. I’ve gone in searching for new and bestselling books (like the Nickel Boys) several times in the months since and not once have they been in stock, making it difficult to support as someone without the resources (and now, desire) to participate in the community lending program.

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Debra
Debra
3 years ago

After this article, they’ll definitely be out of business soon.

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Ethan
Ethan
3 years ago

Thank you for the excellent reporting. So far, it’s only their image that’s damaged, but this should be investigated further, by both journalists and authorities.

“Follow the Money”

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EGF
EGF
3 years ago

Shameful. Karma is a bitch.

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Brenda
Brenda
3 years ago

Well done. I’ve found the whole campaigning so odd. I love visiting our local Book Culture but have been growing uncomfortable with the odd pleas for $$

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UWSHebrew
UWSHebrew
3 years ago
Reply to  Brenda

I have not stepped foot in any store since their stocking and funding of “P is for Palestine”.

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Martin
Martin
3 years ago

“We are extremely vulnerable—but we are not going to be part of forfeiting our personal legacy, joy and what was our dream and our vision and enterprise, for next to nothing. And we aren’t going to simply abide a very wealthy family taking control of the assets of a family that lives paycheck to paycheck.”

So Doeblin would rather scam the folks in the neighborhood instead to solidify his “personal legacy”??

Great reporting by the WSR on this one!

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Reply

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