Jerry Blaz says he'll soon close his BOOKie Joint on Reseda Boulevard. His post at ValleyNews.com (via The Valley Observed) talks about the book biz and some of the clientele who wandered the aisles in Reseda.

The intrepid performer Gary Owens has been one of our most faithful customers. He keeps looking for humor in old books. I recall him crawling around on his hands and knees because we had a collection down on the floor in which he was interested; he is a real fan of humor, and we're convinced he will do almost anything to get good material.

Two members of the Seinfeld show have been customers of the BOOKie Joint, Michael Richards (Kramer) at a time before he had the Seinfeld gig, and Julia-Louis Dreyfus after the series had finished making new episodes.

[snip]

There was one fellow who could come in as much as three times a day, read, leave and come back. Later on I found that he was going to a bar with a girlie show that was then down the street, and in-between shows, he came to the BOOKie Joint to "cool off." And there was the biker bar around the corner which accounted for the bikers who always were gentlemen in the shop and usually bought some books. Today, that bar is long gone and there is in its place an Evangelical Latino church.

The BOOKie Joint opened in 1975.