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Mammoth Is Interesting

The Booky Joint, a Mammoth institution that was shuttered earlier this year, will re-open on July 1 under new management.

Erick Sugimura, 35, and his 38-year-old partner, Dave Leonard, said the store will not operate the old video side but will concentrate instead on books.

"Seeing the store close its doors set something off in me," said Sugimura, a former Mammoth Mountain Ski School instructor who worked in the Booky Joint for the last eight years.

"The town needs a bookstore. We think we can make a successful run out of it."

Sugimura said the store, which orignally opened 30 years ago, will begin with an inventory that will still be building.

"It's definitely a work in progress," he said.

He also said that he and Leonard, 38, a former colleague at the ski hill and a longtime buddy, will modernize the point-of-sale system, making it easier to keep books in stock as well as helping in customer-service staples such as prompt special ordering.

He deflected questions dealing with the wisdom of opening a book store in the age of the Internet, saying the store plans to concentrate on local authors and photographers whose works have been published in book or calendar forms.

Sugimura said he is taking charge of the business side, while Leonard, an Englishman with a degree in literature from Essex University, will take the lead in stocking the shelves.