Final call for Santa Rosa's Sawyer's news

<p>Well-wishers enjoy kidding John Sawyer, but they get a little somber when considering life without Sawyer's News in downtown Santa Rosa.</p><p>The newsstand is closing Friday after 65 years in the city center. Customers and friends will gather this afternoon to celebrate those years with Sawyer, a city councilman, and with his business and life partner, Dan Potts.</p><p>“Sawyer's is an institution that we're going to miss,” said Bernie Schwartz, owner of California Luggage.</p><p>Schwartz, on a walk with his two dogs, had stopped a few minutes earlier to joke with Sawyer about future political action now that the councilman no longer need abstain on votes concerning downtown. But his tone changed markedly when talking about the loss of the Fourth Street newsstand.</p><p>Sawyer's for years was the place to go for news. In better times it offered more than 30 newspapers and more than 3,000 magazines from around the world.</p><p>The business is closing due to declining revenues that Sawyer said were hastened by the Internet, by competition from national bookstores, by a tough economy and by a news industry that has been turned upside down.</p><p>He remains upbeat about his own future and looks forward to better days for both downtown and the U.S. news industry. In all those areas the path ahead isn't clear, but that doesn't seem to shake Sawyer's views.</p><p>“I'm constantly optimistic about downtown's future,” he said. “I just don't know when it will blossom.”</p><p>Those who stop by today likely can get Sawyer and Potts to regale them with a little history, including the aftermath of 9/11 when the Press Democrat put out an “extra” edition and customers clamored for copies of the New York Times and its coverage of the attack on and collapse of the Twin Towers.</p><p>“On the 12th it was madness,” recalled Potts of the volume of customers. “We couldn't keep up.”</p><p>Said Sawyer of those special editions, “It was something you could hold in your hand . . . a historical record.”</p><p>But the newsstand's magazine business took a significant hit more than 15 years ago when Barnes & Noble and later Borders opened bookstores in the city. And, over time, fewer customers sought those out-of-state papers.</p><p>“People were not coming down to pick up their Denver Post,” Sawyer said. “They were looking at it online.”</p><p>About two years ago his newspaper distributor in Sacramento shut down, ending access to most of the out-of-area papers.</p><p>Now with the newsstand closing, finding certain periodicals will get a bit more difficult in Sonoma County.</p><p>“They have magazines nobody else has,” said Mathew Livingston, a customer from Petaluma.</p><p>The magazines cover such topics as surfing, knitting, cooking, bass fishing, boxing, skateboarding, wood working, belly dancing, yoga, UFOs and bodybuilding. The automotive section was the store's largest.</p><p>Sawyer's is among the last of the long-time downtown businesses, a list that includes Corrick's, ER Sawyer Jewelers, Arrigoni's Market and the oldest establishment, the 118-year-old Pedersen's Furniture.</p><p>Keven Brown, whose family has owned Corrick's for 95 years, said downtown merchants are hoping to get a shot in the arm from the proposed transformation of the former AT&T building into a glass-walled, mixed-use space. But he voiced sadness at the closing of the newsstand.</p><p>“Very few communities have a resource like we've had all these years,” Brown said. “We're going to miss John and Sawyer's more than I can say.”</p><p>Sawyer took joint ownership with his twin brother, Michael, in 1984 when they were 29. His brother left the business in 1988. The newsstand was started in 1945 by John Sawyer's great-grandfather, Dr. Fred Sawyer, and grandfather Wilbur Sawyer, and passed on to his father, Wilbur “Bill” Sawyer Jr. in 1977.</p><p>Sawyer, age 54, said he plans to follow repeated advice and take time off work. He said his next venture likely will involve retail, or at least working with people, once “I get tired of the free time.”</p>