FUNERAL FOR A FRIEND; BOOKSTORE TO CLOSE AFTER 23 YEARS.

Byline: Jason Takenouchi Staff Writer

In this story, Goliath wins.

The last secular, independent bookstore in the Santa Clarita Valley, One for the Books, will be laid to rest today in a mock funeral complete with a priest and black-clad mourners.

The 23-year-old store is the latest victim of a bookstore battle that has pitted locally owned businesses against chain stores and, increasingly, Internet sellers such as Amazon.com.

``It's the last of the breed,'' said Jeffrey Weston, former owner of J. Weston Books Etc. Weston stopped selling books in 1996, the year after Barnes & Noble and Crown opened Santa Clarita stores; his renamed store now concentrates on games.

``It's lost,'' Weston said. ``The small people thing is lost.''

Competition from Barnes & Noble and Crown Books also greatly decreased sales at One for the Books. Since the store's pre-Barnes & Noble business, said owner Jan Heidt, the bookstore has lost about two-thirds of its customers.

Faith and a sense of civic duty kept One for the Books in the fight until now, Heidt said.

``It's just a matter of principle for me that the community know what a real bookstore is like,'' Heidt said. ``I thought I'd stay and fight.''

But the fight is over. After three years of losses, and another sales decline of about 20 percent in the past year, Heidt said she will sell the store's remaining inventory in the next six to eight weeks.

Store supporters will mark its passing with a funeral at noon today. The Canyon Theatre Guild, an area acting troupe, will perform the ceremony.

Heidt, owner of the store since 1983, said she made the decision to close even before Borders Books and Music opened a store about three miles away last month. She said she is unsure of her future plans.

``I might write a book,'' Heidt said.

When One for the Books closes its doors, the Santa Clarita Valley's roughly 175,000 residents will have just two locally owned retail bookstores, both small and both affiliated with religious groups.

Officials with New York-based Barnes & Noble Inc. said the company's expansion is driven by economics, not the undercutting of independent stores such as One for the Books.

``We're not in the business of putting anyone out of business,'' said Debra Williams, director of corporate communications for the company.

``When we look to open a store in any market,'' she said, ``the most important consideration is can the market support a store, and can our store serve the community?''

The company owns about 520 stores in 49 states. Its Santa Clarita store is one of 70 in California.

But whether conscious or not, residents here say the rise of chain stores and the decline of locally owned ones is changing the nature of this north Los Angeles County area.

``Historically, in towns such as ours, a lot of the heart and soul is the fact that the small retailers were people who were your neighbors,'' said Ben Boydston, artistic director for the Canyon Theatre Guild and a longtime customer of One for the Books.

Pam Christensen, owner of The Book Castle, a store affiliated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, agreed that the decline of small businesses, especially bookstores, is changing the area.

``When we first moved here, it had such a small-town country feeling,'' she said.

``With the little independent stores,'' Christensen said, ``you can have that feeling. With the big conglomerate stores coming in, I think we'll lose that.''

Heidt, an outspoken member of the Santa Clarita City Council, said independence allowed her to use her own judgment when deciding what to stock and what to highlight.

One example, she said, was her decision not to carry any of the flood of books surrounding the O.J. Simpson murder trial.

``I just don't consider that bookstore fare,'' she said.

One for the Books also carries two books that are perhaps the only detailed history books specific to the Santa Clarita Valley: ``A California Legend'' by Ruth Waldo Newhall and ``Valley of the Golden Dream'' by Jerry Reynolds.

The books are out of print, and Borders and Barnes & Noble do not stock them.

But a local flavor was not enough to help One for the Books compete with big advertising budgets, economies of scale and deep discounts. When Barnes & Noble first opened, it flooded the area with ``25 percent off'' coupons and continues to offer steep discounts for New York Times bestsellers, something Heidt said she could not match.

And Heidt also could not replicate the chain stores' environment - with liberal browsing policies and overstuffed chairs - in her small, 1,200-square-foot store.

Small bookstores across the country are feeling similar strains from big box stores and, more recently, from Internet booksellers, said Jennifer Bigelow, executive director of the Southern California Booksellers Association, a trade group for independent bookstores.

``It's probably going to be a tough fight for a long time, because the chains are able to offer the discounting that some consumers are looking for,'' Bigelow said.

Margie Ghiz, the owner of Midnight Special on Santa Monica's Third Street Promenade, said she is struggling in the face of Borders and Barnes & Noble - both just blocks away - despite tremendous community support and a generous landlord.

Amazon.com also takes a large chunk of her business, she said. Internet company Amazon.com - which began by selling books online and later expanded to movies, music and software - registered sales of $294 million in the first quarter of 1999.

``There should be stores all over that give people a choice, showing them what's out there and challenging them,'' Ghiz said. ``There is something more important than the marketplace.''

Heidt, owner of One for the Books, said her store was a communication line with her customers as well as a business.

``This is where I met people, where I talked to people,'' she said. ``It's like losing a good friend.''

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PHOTO (Color) One for the Books owner Jan Heidt will be closing her bookstore in the Santa Clarita Valley in the coming months, after 23 years.

Hans Gutknecht/Daily News