A black, hardcover copy of The Hobbit thumps onto the counter of an old bank teller's window. It's accompanied by another Tolkien work and removed from a protective sleeve to be cracked open by steady hands. The practised eyes of John W. Doull, a dishevelled Santa look-a-like, inspect the old book's spine.
“I'm sure someone will want them, but I'm not really in the market for a couple of reasons right now,” Doull says with a soft laugh.
These days, the owner of John W. Doull Books has a lot on his mind. After 25 years spent accumulating stock, he's got to figure out how to move the towering stacks of poetry, non-fiction, photo-books and novels filling his store on the corner of Barrington Street and Prince from one side of Halifax to the other without losing his customer base in the process. But Doull has few other options.
Each landlord downtown pays a little over three bucks for every 100 dollars of property value, putting Halifax's commercial tax rates among the highest in the country. As property values rise, so do the financial burdens of the owner. These stresses trickle down in the form of higher rent for tenants like Doull. And in the now-familiar recession, lower rates, thus taxes, thus rent, are making a Dartmouth tenancy much more appealing.
Doull is tight-lipped about exactly how much money he'll save, but it's probably safe to say that the former site of Wacky Wheatley's Audiotronics on 122 Main St. in Dartmouth is a bit more affordable than his current Barrington Street residence. Long-promised construction on Barrington and a still-mythical worker boom from the shipbuilding contract weren't able to tip the scales and make Doull stay.
“As a street the costs are going up and without any benefit,” he says. “Its only gonna get worse with this alleged bump from the shipbuilding contract – rent's probably gonna go up. I don't want to be around for that.”
The new place has 30 parking spots, but it's the added square footage of the new home that Doull is looking forward to. It'll allow him to store all of his books in one building and display more of the higher value tomes on the shop floor.
“What you see here is the tip of the iceberg,” his hand sweeps across the endless columns of roughly categorized knowledge marching around the room. “We have tens of thousands of really nice books and I can tell people 'Oh yeah, they're on the website,' but I want to be able to show them to people who are keen,” he says.
Doull is sad he's leaving but hopes to recreate the cozy, eclectic vibe his shop has become known for around town and around the world.
“The best bookstore in Canada – and I've been from coast to coast,” says Brian McA'Nulty, a 74-year old retired Canada Post employee. One of Doull's oldest customers, McA'Nulty remembers when Doull opened his first store on Granville Street. He's happy that the shop is moving closer to where he lives, “but I'm sort of sad for downtown Halifax.”
“Ten or fifteen years ago Halifax, Wow! Exciting place to be. And now it's just sterile,” says McA'Nulty. “It’s got leadership that doesn't want to be forward looking, doesn't want to take chances. It's too bad.”
The men digress, knowing that the city's governing mechanisms are not wholly to blame for a stagnant economy. When asked about the changing book market it's clear that the much-touted e-book threat doesn't scare Doull. He's been selling online for the past ten years and has sent merchandise all over the planet to as far away as Japan, Europe, the United States and much of the rest of Canada. He's even sold one book to the Vatican.
Laura Tindall, a 23-year-old Torontonian on her first visit to the store, is proof of a still-enthusiastic customer base.
“I just impulse buy books. I could spend all my money at a bookstore,” she says as she cradles a second-hand Salman Rushdie novel in the crook of her arm.
When another long-time customer heard the news about the move she was worried.
“I thought, 'Oh please, not Bayer's Lake!'” Her biggest concern now is whether or not she can bus to the new location. Doull lets her know that the 10 to Westphal goes right past it.
The move will take place slowly over the next few months as Doull begins shifting his merchandise from the back rooms, the secret vault and the storage facility over to the new store, which he says will be his last stop.
“Booksellers like me don't usually retire, we just sort of keep going 'till we drop,” he says. “So, I will keep going there 'til I drop.”
All photos and video by Adam Scotti
