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Everybody's business

Pioneering shop will step aside

As the gay and lesbian culture meshes with the mainstream, there's less need for specialty stores like Tomes and Treasures.

By MICHAEL CANNING
Published April 29, 2005

You can pick up episodes of The L Word and Queer as Folk at Best Buy. Mainstream gay and lesbian book titles can be easily found at Borders or Barnes & Noble.

Which means "this type of store is less necessary," Bill Kanouff said of his SoHo coffee house, bookstore and gift shop, Tomes and Treasures. So he'll close it on June 1.

"Business has been consistently declining over six years," he said.

Occupying a distinctive A-frame building at 406 S Howard Ave. for eight years, Tomes and Treasures transcended its retail function and became a social hub for the gay and lesbian community. But the mainstreaming of gay culture, a mission Kanouff sought to achieve with Tomes and Treasures, ironically has brought about the business' demise.

Kanouff said megabookstore chains, along with the Internet, have given his clientele other places to buy the sorts of books and videos he specializes in.

Even local demographics have changed. "Hyde Park and Palma Ceia used to be the old gay districts," Kanouff said. "We gentrified those neighborhoods so nice that the yuppies moved in behind us. Now gays are stretched all over."

Kanouff added that his longtime customers who move away haven't been replaced by younger ones.

Gary Luter, a theater professor and faculty sponsor of the Spartan Gay/Straight Alliance at the University of Tampa, also sees a generational shift. "More recently it seems it's like just a nonissue," Luter said of the status of gay culture in mainstream society. "I think among the current (college-age) generation, they don't see it as a controversy."

Luter has been a Tomes and Treasures regular since its inception 18 years ago, when it occupied a 600-square-foot house on the corner of Howard and Cleveland avenues. "It's where I go to grade papers on Sunday nights," he said. "That's a shame that we're losing it."

Kanouff said he'll run a liquidation sale throughout May. After closing, he'll rent out the 2,700-square-foot building, possibly to another coffeehouse business, or a mortgage broker.

As for other businesses in the bay area that fill the same niche as Tomes and Treasures, those which are oriented only to the gay and lesbian community, Kanouff couldn't name one.

Neither could Luter. "Sometimes I go to Borders to grade my papers," he said. "So I guess that's where I'll end up."

BRAZILIAN MUSIC ON SEVENTH: The name is Cachaca, but it's pronounced "kah-SHAH-zah."

Say it. Sounds fun and exotic, doesn't it?

Not surprisingly, it happens to be the name of a popular Brazilian liquor, and a new nightclub in Ybor City. Cachaca opened Feb. 19 at 1801 E Seventh Ave., the open air patio that was previously the site of Harpo's.

Club owner Andreas Guerrero is actually a native of Colombia. But he appreciates the appeal of Brazilian culture. And Argentinian culture, for that matter.

Along with Brazilian music and drink, he's also commissioned the nearby El Puerto Argentinian restaurant to turn his patio's firepit into an Argentinian grill. That means chorizos, skirt steak and pinchos (steak and vegetable skewers) will come hot off the fire.

The canopied bar will feature caipirinhas, the famous Brazilian concoction of Cachaca, fresh lime and sugar.

Disc jockeys will spin mostly Brazilian pagode music until 9 p.m., then switch to more danceable rhythms of salsa, merengue, reggaeton and hip-hop. Hours are Thursday through Sunday from 6 p.m. to 3 a.m.

Do you know something that should be everybody's business? Call 226-3394, or e-mail mikecanning@hotmail.com

[Last modified April 28, 2005, 08:33:09]