---

All’s fair in love and war
in American marketplace

SCORES of strangers stood in the line, some shifting their feet, others with tiny beads of sweat dripping down foreheads as air conditioners competed against the press of bodies and humid air continually drifting in through the store's open doors.

There were occasional remarks about the long wait to get to the checkout counter, but no one was really complaining. All had arms full of goods culled from the thousands of items put on sale at heavily marked-down prices.

I'm sure many of the customers had come for the bargains. I'm equally certain that most were there to say goodbye, to shop one last time at the venerable Iida's emporium.

People filled the aisles, inching around open boxes piled haphazardly next to shelves crammed with plates and bowls, figurines and slippers, scrolls and sashes, vases and planters, yukata, fine art work, mats, handmade paper, toys, kitchen gadgets, key chains, back-scratchers and chopstick rests.

Iida's appeal had been its variety of merchandise, a general store for things Japanese reflecting its beginning in 1900 as a supply house for products familiar to immigrants. In today's marketplace, as customer bases shift with age and population changes, its formula could not generate the sales needed to thrive or satisfy the profit quotas retail centers demand. The end was foreshadowed when the store was forced to relocate from a corner with brisk foot traffic to a gloomy backwater, away from the dazzle and glitz of the contemporary, trendy flashes of shops that cycle through malls these days.

There's no one to blame, though. I supposed Iida's could have adjusted its lines to account for the changes, but tradition often squeezes business decisions and customs trail in the volatility of the trade.

When a shop like Iida's closes, the tendency is to wax nostalgic, to sentimentalize with anecdotes from longtime customers and longtime employees. But except for a pause to reminisce, the business whirl will move on.

Chains and franchises that previously ignored the islands as small-profit potatoes have inundated commerce here. A case can be made that consumers benefit from lower prices, but the trade-off is a tedium of retail sameness. Stores and restaurants, once conspicuous as individuals, aren't able to withstand the national and global economic influences that mutate perceptions of wants and needs. Malls in Miami could easily be mistaken for malls on Maui with the monotone of wares displayed before contrived tropical backdrops.

Year after year, businesses distinguished with island identities and histories disappear from the scene. The list includes Wisteria, Carol & Mary, Kim Chow Shoes and Liberty House. Some, like Columbia Inn and McInerny, go out with fanfares; others, like Craig's Bakery and Coffee Manoa, take their leave quietly.

But all's fair in love and war and an American marketplace that exiles stores that can't endure competition from brawny big boxes and mighty retailers.

That's the harsh reality, I thought, as I picked through artfully wrapped sewing needles fine enough to stitch silk. I never would have noticed them had I not had to wait in the line that looped through that corner of Iida's. Other customers also discovered objects as they filed slowly forward. Maybe their resistance to impulse purchases had been weakened, like mine, by a sense that Iida's passing further dilutes the islands' character.

Though the clerks rushed from one transaction to the next, they maintained hallmarks of Iida's service -- courtesy and attention to detail. One even found the unblemished original box for a one-of-a-kind paper sculpture that had been stocked almost a decade previous.

Iida's proprietor was hustling about filling orders when an elderly woman caught his arm. He bowed as she murmured her thanks to him for years of service. He seemed sad, but he ought not to be. One-hundred five years in business is a good run.

---