2018 September COLONY Magazine

LOCAL BUSINESS
JOHN’S VIDEO PALACE
Local business marks 30 years of family-friendly fun
For the past 30 years, John’s Video Palace
has been renting out “pure entertainment”
to the people of Atascadero, offering
them a couple of hours of escape from
the real world.
“People come in here to take a break from
reality, to watch something that couldn’t really
happen, and then they have to go back out
there,” said owner John Taft.
Taft’s enthusiasm for movies and for his
customers are evident as soon as one walks
through the front door.
“What movie can I help you find?” Taft asks
with a smile. “Name any old move, I’ve got it.”
According to Taft, it’s that enthusiasm and
commitment to making the video store experience
fun and friendly that kept the business
going throughout the years, especially during
the heyday of Blockbuster Video (don’t say “the
B word” around John!) when the giant corporation
was driving mom and pop video stores out
of business left and right. When John’s Video
Palace first opened in 1988, it had 10 other
John’s Video Palace owner John Taft.
Photo by Luke Phillips
By Luke Phillips
competitors in town, but the numbers slowly
dwindled and many of the small operations
that couldn’t compete with the big guys turned
to renting pornographic videos, Taft said.
“We’re not carrying that and we’re not supporting
that,” Taft said. “People would come in
here and say ‘You’re not carrying them? Then
we’re supporting you.’”
Most of the store’s customers these days
consist of families with young children who
can’t afford the cost of movie theater tickets,
those who don’t have a good enough internet
to stream movies and those who can’t find the
movie they’re looking for online. And perhaps,
from time to time, a younger couple on a date
night looking for a bit of nostalgia.
“Online you only get your choice of a handful
of movies,” he said. “We’re almost like a library
now, like an old-fashioned thing. We’ve
got all the old movies that nobody has anymore.
Certain movies may only rent once a year, twice
a year so that’s why Neflix and those guys don’t
want them. They don’t want to carry them because
they don’t make any money. They don’t
care — we carry them.”
The store carries more than 6,000 older titles
and they rent for $3 for two nights, a price
that hasn’t changed in more than 20 years. Taft
finally budged and raised the price of new releases
from $3.50 to $3.95 recently, but refused
to raise the price for library titles because he
“likes to keep it old school.”
John’s Video Palace, located at 8120 El
Camino Real, is open seven days per week,
from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. For more information,
call 805-466-5525.
“tell ‘em Sol sent you"
22 | colonymagazine.com COLONY Magazine, September 2018