It’s a cover. A book cover

Went into that store a month or two ago midday on a Sunday. The door was open and we started browsing and they said something like “oh we’re open by appointment only, no browsing, if you don’t know what you want we’re going to ask you to leave” uh ok bye???? As someone who has never left a bookstore without buying a book until then, it was fucking weeeeeird.

Every time I see one of these posts I think of Pulp Fiction. I’m convinced they have a gimp locked up in a box in the basement.

My favorite local conspiracy. There are tons of posts with people explaining their experiences at this store, on top of the hours of online reviews.

Of course nothing has been confirmed. This sub will freak the fuck out if there are ever any updates.

Went in there recently with my fiancée, just looking at what they had not looking for anything in particular. The lady kept asking us weird questions and following us around wouldn’t leave us alone, the gentleman just hovered and watched us like hawks said nothing. They eventually told us they had an appointment to go to and us shopping in their store was keeping them and asked us to leave. Vibes were weird AF. 10/10 don’t recommend and never going back.

Has anyone asked for an appointment?

I wonder if they live in that place and just use the store as a tax write off. they get weirded out and are constantly on edge because they know what they are doing is wrong but maybe there's a gray area that they skate through..they just have to have the appearance that it's a store but don't have to technically sell shit and can be the worst to customers as they please. this is all a theory and allegedly~

There was a coffee shop near where I live in Denver. Never open. The few times that it was open, everything was free -- coffee, ice cream, sandwiches.

Then, a local body shop got raided for fencing stolen cars, and the coffee shop closed. They had the same owner. So ... this might be a similar situation.

I need someone to go full Tim Robinson chair company on this store

I honestly don’t know how they stay in business. Maybe it’s a money laundering front? Cause they suck and don’t seem to like customers.

I wonder how they interact when they have the farmers market on sundays during the summer. There’s got to be some stories.

For teachers, educators and corporate, our very competitive discount on quantity purchases will benefit schools and businesses. In addition to new books, we carry stationery, children's toys, and now have an art venue for local artists and a small coffee grab-and-go shop. We take individual orders and help with curriculum development. We are a veteran- and minority woman-owned business .

From their website. Maybe they do most of their business on large orders to institutional partners?

If they are money laundering or operating a front they are doing an extremely shitty job of it.

Stop in when you get the chance, it's an experience.

It's so weird in there. I love bookstores and I avoid this one.

I live in this neighborhood and challenge everyone that visits to try to buy something for there. Two have succeeded. The rest have been thrown out or had the door locked as they were trying to walk in. We will never know the truth

I accidentally walked in here meaning to go to the other bookstore just down the street. Once I realized what I had done I pulled my phone out and the lady shoo’d me out of there so fast. As everyone has said strange place…

So I did a dive into this place like a year ago and came across old newspaper articles (1190s or early 2000s maybe) praising the place. They were doing community events, cultural events for the community ect.... then at some point they stopped letting people in??? I never could find a reason why. I did get nosy and found their now grown son on fb but I wasnt brave enough to message him directly lol .

I imagine so.wthing had to of happened?

The thing that really stands out to me is the way that they will slam and sometimes lock the door after people only to open it again a few minutes later. So weird!

Maybe it's a performance art piece by two eccentric millionare retirees?

It really feels like a fake business for something bad. The elderly couple are clearly guarding the store.

The weirdest thing to me is if it’s fake, why did they pick a spot with good walking traffic? And why prohibit browsing? Even a fake business would want extra money. I wonder what happens if you know exactly what you want to buy? Will they claim the book is out of stock? Do they have a computer or cash register to even make sales?

My favorite yelp review is someone saying that it’s what a front to a mob looks like.

No idea but I can confirm that this place is extremely fucking weird

I visited 4 years ago & thought I was being asked for COVID/lockdown reasons, while every other store on the block was open. Went to the Google Reviews to have my experience validated, and one of them reviews said the no phone policy was because the in the 2010s, the owners said someone had taken photos of their store and posed as the store online, collected online orders/money, but never delivered items & ruined their reputation. They said they didn't want anyone to have photos to impersonate them again. Okay, maybe? But photos alone does not an impersonation make.

Two of the oddest parts of my visit was that they

1. Had a sign in the window for an "in store sale on all toys & games," yet you could not browse the store
2. There was a table outside of ARCs (advanced reader copies for promotional purposes) that cost $5 each as a donation to a Children's organization. ARCs are sent to readers/reviewers for free & cannot be resold, so the entire thing felt icky to me. And they recommended I buy 1 of those instead of browsing the store.

I posted about trying to go in there on another post and was never allowed in. Everytime I tried to walk in they said “sorry doing inventory” and closed the door.

We told my MIL about it and she was asked to leave within 5 minutes of browsing books. They said if she wants to buy she needs to select a book online and it will be ordered for her.

I also saw them at the Highland street fair open but not letting anyone in and saying we are closed but want to support the community

There is clearly something weird going on. They now have a no phones policy taped outside their window so it’s clearly some sort of front or weird shit

All these comments about appt only and no one bothered to make a fucking appt and see if they still act weird asf during the appt.

Also, sounds like conspiracy theorists/paranoids own it

It’s my favorite local conspiracy. I really want to visit one of these days just to experience being told off myself

Can’t wait to go and tell them I’m just browsing. They also have an event 1/15 should we go?

https://www.32ndavenuebooks.com/event/falcon-review-gallery-art-class-sketching-animals-artist-monica-hokeilen

Once a year, they have to go through a fire inspection. Maybe Denver Fire Station 12 knows the secrets.

Could it be a secret gambling ring or brothel or drugs or something? And you have to ask for the secret code word book in order to get access?

I just took a watercolor class there with a friend, and the people who I think are the owners were there. They were surprisingly friendly. I expected more weirdness and standoffish vibes given I live in the neighborhood and know the lore about this place. That said, not sure I would do another painting class there in the future

It seems like every city has its share of these weird stores and the story is usually that the people running it either:
(1) Own the place outright and have for many years;
(2) Lucked into a place with very low rent and a disinterested owner;
(3) Have money/inheritance that allows them to just spend whatever they need;
(4) Have a relative willing to pony up the money for (3)

All four cases allow the proprietor(s) to just sit there and fuck around and "play shop clerk" all day long without having to worry about sales or marketing or customer satisfaction.

Just read some of "Steve's Book Reviews" on their website and uhh...doesn't seem like the kind of place I would want to patronize even without all the other weirdness.

I read comparisons to Seinfeld’s Soup Nazi and it seems to fit from the stories.

Oh that place is notoriously the weirdest business in Denver! I was so offended after my first time going there years ago when I got scolded for having my phone in my hand and then followed around the store until I gave up and left but I realized after I looked them up that nigh that I just gone through some sort of NW Denver rite of passage and was pleased to have joined the club! It’s wild that they are still in business but I am sort of impressed that they have made it this long and seem to be even doubling down on being the worst customer service ever. It’s their niche!

Maybe they also own Blue Ice on Broadway

https://www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.org/?a=d&d=LVN20021120-01.2.46&e=-------en-20--1--img-txIN%7CtxCO%7CtxTA--------0------

Here’s a newspaper story about them from the 90s. There’s more about them online but they were big into the Chicano movement and created this bookstore specifically for Latino literature, hence their original name Cultural Legacy books, which may have opened in the 1986 or 1987 before moving to the highlands in 1996. All of the business articles of incorporation are public but I won’t post them because it has names and addresses.

They also own property in Golden. Seems they keep the bookstore running because it is their personal business, and since they own millions of dollars of property around Denver and golden they probably don’t need the money. No link bc identifying info but it’s public info under the biz records.

The wife is a professor at CU and built the BA/MA program in ethnic studies in 2009.

https://www.colorado.edu/education/2016/10/21/new-41-program-adds-future-teachers-community-leaders

She also runs a church group for immigrant women, specifically mothers, built around learning English and making friends. She was from Peru and was a young mother in Denver.

There’s a ton more info on them if you look for it. Tons. They seem like decent people and the book store is more about hosting events and church groups and selling textbooks for the course that the professor wrote (a professor who requires the text book they wrote seems sus af but idk if that’s illegal and I don’t care to dig into it further).

So, not a cult or money laundering scheme, just a bored older business owner who wants to have church groups and such in their bookstore that makes no money which is fine because they own the whole building (and probably more buildings if you look for them).

I went here and browsed for a half hour, bought a couple things. Asked one question and the person was helpful, then let me browse some more. Had a completely normal experience

Edit: Another commenter asked if I was sure I wasn’t talking about the “other store down the street.” So I googled it, and they were right. I was talking about West Side Books, which is (was?) also on 32nd and has a 4.8 star rating as opposed to 32nd Avenue’s 1.2 rating. My mistake.

Time portal.

Yall are making me want to stop by

I lived a block away from this place for about a decade. Anywho like 15 years ago I bought a book for my wife in there, browsed, and I remember chatting with the dude at the register.

Didn’t know this place got lore and the owners kooky. I really miss living in that neighborhood!

This is the r/denver I love

[insert Portlandia "Toni and Candace" meme]

Edit: Edit.

I think covid sent them down a weird path. Pre-covid it was still kind of weird but more or less a functioning bookstore that one could browse in (just no phones).

The only quasi legal things I can imagine are they either: -deal in collectible books with really high value and don’t want walk-in customers potentially damaging things. -they sell a lot of books online, so they just have a storefront, but 99% of their income is from EBay or some other book specific online store 

Like everyone else, I wandered thinking I could find a book for my nephew — they literally have signs about coffee and book clubs and shit — instead you run smack into an old couple yelling at you about appointments only and “no browsing allowed.” 🤣

Has anyone gone to one of their events? They have one coming up…

According to a google review

“The reason they don't allow electronics in the store is because in the recent past, somebody took photos of their store and created a fake website in order to scam people out of money. By the time the owners realized what was happening, people had already ordered off the fake website and they had no idea why people were calling them asking where their book order was. They involved the police and initiated a formal investigation.”

Here it is, 1:30 am. I can't sleep and now I've fallen down a rabbit hole in the mystery of 32nd Street Books. Thanks a lot. 😵

I’ve become a somewhat regular shopper there. I guess I have been “accepted”. I was asked to leave on my first visit, however, I returned later and purchased a couple of children’s books and got a recommendation for another book (which was fantastic). They are strange but once you know them, they are quite nice, just maybe a bit off. They are now offering art classes and seem to be more welcoming than in the past.

The woman there has been there for years, my partner grew up in the area and told me she used to give out free books to kids after school

I went it last year to buy a pencil since the stationary store across the street only sells pens. Figured it would be a shit show but it was actually normal.

No one harassed me, I had to ask where the pencils were. A mom and son were looking at kids toys.

My hunch on the phones is they’re extremely paranoid of people going in the store and searching for books they like on Amazon.

I’m rooting for you all to find answers, but hope people do it with some respect and discretion. Flooding the store with people or harassing an old couple with cameras is not going to make them any more welcoming.

I’m surprised no one has mentioned this yet, but the bookstore owners own the building (including the space next door where Wax Trax opened up). The simplest explanation is that they have been around a long time, are now very paranoid, and can afford to keep running their weird little store.

https://personal.spatialest.com/co/denver#/property/334198000

It’s either a front, money laundering, a tax write off for someone wealthy, or it meets some arbitrary criteria for collecting $ from a trust

Purchase a gift certificate and bring it to the store so you can use it… while I do not know anything, it would seem to be borderline criminal to not allow a customer to use a gift certificate that is specifically tendered to their store. https://32ndavenuebooks.indiecommerce.com/32nd-avenue-books-toys-gits-gift-certificate

Also, bring a kiddo, that might be helpful. A gift certificate for a kid.

So now I'm obsessed. There is a lot of information on Celia Brehm on True People Search including that she lives in Golden in a $800,000 house! They're getting their money from somewhere!