Barnes and Noble ofically announced its return to the 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica on Thursday by placing a "coming soon" banner on it's future location between Johnny Rocket’s and Coffee Bean.

Barnes & Noble has been opening new bookstores at an unprecedented rate. Having opened only one or two new stores each year during the decade after 2009, Barnes & Noble has opened over a dozen new bookstores in 2022 and has over 30 further stores in development for 2023. Expansion this size is possible because of a strengthened interest in books and reading that came as a result of the pandemic — more people read because they were stuck at home. The book store chain says it has been experiencing increasing sales, supported by “significant expansion of the market for physical books driven by word-of-mouth and social media recommendations."

“The health of good bookstores has never been better than at present as demonstrated by all the new openings” said James Daunt, CEO, Barnes & Noble. “It is such an exciting sea change in the fortunes of bookstores, with booming sales of books being led by real books being bought in real bookstores.

Opening date for the new Santa Monica store has not yet been anounced.

The milky way core along PCH nearby El Matador Beach

Julian Martinez is leading the paddle out for Chris “Spanto” Printup this Saturday at the Breakwater.

The Santa Monica Pier 360 Beach Festival had a mini-ramp built on the pier for their Skate Experience. It was open to everyone and free.

This set of skate photos was shot by Six12 Media during the 2-day event.


















You can find 200+ more photos from this session, all full size and in high-resolution, in this photo gallery:

Pier 360 Skate Experience Photo Gallery

Video by Venice Gallerie

Video by Noshington Wells

From Santa Monica Close Up:

"Santa Monica Police Officers swiftly responded to a call from traffic control officers who had encountered an individual engaged in the illicit reselling of used parking receipts at the Santa Monica Beach Public Parking lot. The incident took place on July 10, 2023. Upon arrival, the officers detained the man in question in order to conduct essential identity verification and background checks. Subsequently, they proceeded to issue him a cautionary advisory.

It is important to highlight that fraudulent theft, particularly through the means observed in this case, is generally classified as a misdemeanor offense. However, depending on the cumulative value of the fraudulent activities, the charges could potentially be escalated to a felony.

During the course of the interaction, the man exhibited a confrontational attitude, accompanied by audacious assertions of intending to continue his unlawful practices by reselling used tickets at other public parking lots.

This incident represents an ongoing and recurring problem that has plagued the beach parking lots for a significant period of time."

Santa Monica Close Up is a photo blog by Santa Monica based Photojournalist/Press photographer Fabian Lewkowicz. Fabian is the former staff photographer for the Santa Monica Daily Observer Press, Santa Monica Mirror, Santa Monica and the Santa Monica Corsair.

Support Santa Monica Closeup/Fabian Lewkowicz with Venmo or PayPal to help earn money to make these videos:

https://venmo.com/u/santamonicacloseup

https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/fabianlewkowicz

Person is caught trying to steal bags from people on the beach near the Venice Pier.

Sugar the Surfing Dog rides waves with the adaptive surf athletes at Life Rolls On's They Will Surf Again event in Santa Monica.

For photos of this event, Click Here