This L.A. bookstore is leading a revolt against 'greedy landlords'

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On a Tuesday evening in Eagle Rock, used-bookstore owners Jeremy and Debbie Kaplan were closing up for the day when a stranger rushed through the entrance.He tossed an envelope onto the counter, said something like: “Building’s been sold,” and slipped out.Inside the envelope, the Kaplans found a 30-day notice: The shop’s $1,200 monthly rent would be increasing to $2,805 on April 1, they were required to decide whether they would accept the more than 133% price hike a month in advance, and they’d need to agree to a three- to five-year lease if so.

The letter arrived Feb.17, which meant the Kaplans had 11 days to accept the new landlord’s terms or leave.“We couldn’t even consider it,” Jeremy Kaplan said.

“It would be suicide.” The couple looked around the 680-square-foot shop.From the floor to ceiling, more than 20,000 books were crammed every which way into shelves they’d built and stained themselves nearly 20 years before.

“My first reaction was panic,” he said.“How are we going to move out of this place?”Their children had grown up at Read Books (pronounced like the color, as in: “These aren’t new books, they’re previously read books.”) The realization began to set in, Jeremy said, that they were being pushed out with intimidation tactics.

“We started getting angry.So the next day, we started looking into our legal rights.”After searching the internet, the Kaplans found California’s Senate Bill 1103, the Commercial Tenant Protection Act that passed last year.

The law offers protections for “qualified commercial tenants” and requires landlords to give a 90-day notice for rent increases surpassing 10%.Lifestyle Sandra Mejia and her husband, Bantalem Adis, opened the Plant Chica to greenify South L.A.

Now, they might have to leave to make way for new construction in a changing neighborhood.When the Kaplans tried to contact th...