‘Nesting’ Business Draws Book Soup To Orange County
Retail
by Deborah Belgum
After 27 years of operating just one bookstore in West Hollywood, owner Glenn Goldman is finally expanding Book Soup.
The bibliophile is going south to Orange County where he will be taking over the former Rizzoli’s Bookstore space at the South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa.
Goldman, who admits he doesn’t know Orange County as well as L.A. County, was approached by the shopping center’s executives about taking over the 4,400-square-foot space.
The advantage of moving to that location is that many of the bookshelves and fixtures are still in place.
The new Book Soup, however, will differ slightly from Goldman’s popular original outlet located on the Sunset Strip. There will be a more conservative mix of titles that concentrate on topics popular with suburbanites, such as cooking, interior design, architecture and photography. “Film and music will be de-emphasized,” Goldman noted. “I’ll be going more with books about nesting.”
The new Book Soup opens the first week of August.
Goldman’s store on the Sunset Strip has a popular following among A-list movie stars and directors. It is also known for its book-signing events featuring well-known authors and celebrities.
Goldman, who started his business while he was a graduate student at UCLA, is hoping the Orange County bookstore becomes as popular as his L.A. endeavor.
Domainatrix
Frederick’s of Hollywood has an identity problem. Or at least its Web site does. For years, there have been other look-alike Web sites capitalizing on the store’s name. While the chain of lingerie stores has an online presence at Fredericks.com, there are other Web sites such as fredricksofhollywood.com, fredricks-of-hollywood.com and fredricksofhollywood.net, all slightly misspelled versions of the Frederick’s name, and eight other similar names.
So last month, the L.A.-based company filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles against Holt Industries LLC, Artco Equipment Co. and the principal of both firms, Howard Goldberg, according to Linda LoRe, Frederick’s of Hollywood’s chief executive.
“Our name is our name and nobody can take it and use it for no reason at all,” LoRe said.
Goldberg and other officials at the two companies named in the lawsuit could not be reached for comment.
The lingerie company first sent letters to the Web site operators more than one year ago asking them to cease and desist.
“We got little response or a letter back saying you can buy this domain name from us,” said Seth Jacobson, a company spokesman. “At this point, we brought in our attorneys who sent a more stern letter.”
When that didn’t work, Frederick’s tried to involve the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which oversees domain names. Negotiations with some Web site operators continue, but Frederick’s decided to file a lawsuit against the major offenders last month.
A hearing date has not been set.
Staff reporter Deborah Belgum can be reached at (323) 549-5225 ext. 228, or at
[email protected].
