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Vic Books Pipitea has been forced to close
Vic Books is – was – a two-store chain in Wellington, with a bookstore at the University campus (Vic Books Kelburn) and another near Parliament (Vic Books Pipitea). The latter store was at Ground Zero of February-March’s so-called “freedom” Occupation, and was forced to close during the anti-mandate protest. The decision has now been made to shut down Vic Books Pipitea completely. An email interview with the store’s general manager Jessica Godfrey was conducted on Monday night.
What sort of bookstore is Vic Books Pipitea?
It’s diagonally opposite the Beehive, and an adjoining cafe was fitted out in 2016. The idea was to service Schools of Law and Government & Business. It’s a pretty inspirational spot – we look out at Parliament, High Court and one of the great wooden buildings of the world.
What’s the scene like around there – lots of public servants, lots of teenagers, lots of mad people?
Sounds like you’ve been there. Vic Books Pipitea is near the railway station so there are commuters. We used to be quite a destination for the cruise ships and sell lots of books about New Zealand, cards with pohutukawa flowers, University memorabilia too actually. Our regulars are mostly University staff, students and a lot of elegant men who have a soft spot for our rather fabulous booksellers Lisa and Karen. It’s the place to rub shoulders with past and future Prime Ministers. And also with the drunk Russian who used to sit on our front doorstep – customers had to step over him to enter. We started giving him a takeaway coffee each morning to get him on his way.
What were some of the best events you held there?
The one that stands out for me right now is the launch of Geoffrey Palmer’s new book Democracy in Aotearoa New Zealand: A Survival Guide. He wrote it with his grand-daughter Gwen Palmer Steeds. Both he and the acting Prime Minister who was launching the book, Grant Robertson, started their speeches with how Vic Books had managed to survive the protests. That was a bit melancholy. The day we re-opened after the protests Geoff and his great mate Ken (Sir Kenneth Keith) came into the bookshop making it clear they had refrained from buying books anywhere else until they could purchase them from us.
How were things going by the end of 2021, really?
Like a lot of businesses, particularly retail and hospitality, the wage subsidies saved us. So we lost money in both 2020 and 2021. But, we’re also a 47-year-old business, we had a lot of stock and rather nice but forgotten things lying around that I decided to turn into cash. I set about selling anything I could and being more prudent about purchasing and we actually got our cashflow to a really good position. We made the strategic decision to invest in the brand with the cash we’d managed to generate, we did our first big proper textbook campaign with billboards, we bought a new van that I was ready to wrap with bold branding and we were all set to refurbish Pipitea – new colours, the espresso bar rebranded to Short Story by Vic Books (I guess I’ll never use that logo). But everything changed so rapidly…
How were things in the first week or two of the Occupation?
You know Day One, it was kind of okay. They were certainly different from the educated public servants, students and academics we were used to conversing with every day. But they were kind of jovial. For example on the first day I corrected the punctuation of a rather appalling sign about our PM and got some humorous laughter from the campers. I never would have dared to do that by Day Two or Three. The sentiment shifted that quickly.
By Day Two I wasn’t letting our driver go between the two shops on her own and I accompanied her. It was still okay inside the bookshop, turns out the protesters aren’t much interested in books, though we did sell rather a lot of permanent markers followed swiftly by correction fluid. A lot of them were coming in without masks and showing fake exemption cards. I had a number of trips where I was followed and told I had to remove my mask. The whole area was covered in tents and none of the staff wanted to go outside to get fresh air. We had to pull the staff from the site, the added difficulty was that we had to move all the Trimester One textbooks from Pipitea up to Kelburn before the University closed the building.
The protests coincided with the beginning of the two most important weeks of our entire year – when the University student population arrive on campus and get their texts. That period is the equivalent of another retailer’s Christmas week. Then the University made the decision to shift classes to online only for the next six weeks. We understand that decision, it’s just that we lost our customers overnight. No access to site, no customers on site and public servants working from home.
Did things pick up and look hopeful after they got turfed out of Parliament?
The University took everything online, and the buildings were empty for weeks after protestors left. Footfall was so low, and we didn’t make enough $$ to cover direct costs let alone cover overheads.
What would you like to say to the protestors now?
I’d tell them they were hypocrites.
I also think there’s a disaffection there that deserves some real looking at. That disaffection can lead to things even worse. There’s a mistrust by regional New Zealand of the centre of government and urban Aotearoa. It’s really worrying. I don’t want to see anything as ugly in my home city as that protest ever again.
Finally – how are you?
This is a really sweet question. I know the team have worked so hard for two years to keep Vic Books Pipitea running. Retail and hospitality are the hardest hit sectors and put into the mix education and central city and it doesn’t get much tougher under Covid. We were just so hopeful for 2022 and if it had been just a once-in-a-century, two-year event then we might have made it. Honestly, I feel like I’ve let them down.
But I made a promise months ago I would only blame Covid and nothing else for what has unfolded. If you go down the road of blame you’ll go mad. So, fuck Covid.
And thank you to everyone who has supported us – staff, customers, former Prime Ministers, Justin who comes in every day and calls everyone scallywags rather loudly, everyone who’s buying books from us online and coming in-store to support us in our final month before we move everything to Kelburn. Thank you x
Vic Books Pipitea at Rutherford House, 27 Lambton Quay, is holding an awesome closing down sale – there’s a 50% off bargain basket, 20% off books pre-2022, 10% off all new books, and 10% off online purchases now until Sunday June 17.
