MOUNTLAKE TERRACE — Dean McDonald loves movies.
His passion led him to a career in the video rental business, beginning as owner of Lynnwood Video in 1977, then Richmond Beach Video and, in 1996, Video Mirage, 22402 44th Ave. W. in Mountlake Terrace.
But his passion for film wasn’t enough, he says, to overcome stiff competition from “the big boys” — namely, Blockbuster and the Internet-based subscription service Netflix. Simply put, Video Mirage, Mountlake Terrace’s only independent video store, is going out of business.
On Jan. 24, McDonald rang up the last sales for his collection of DVDs and videos in preparation for vacating the store. His lease expires Jan. 31.
“As far as selection goes, I can beat Blockbuster,” McDonald said. “But as far as quantity, I can’t compete against them.”
Videos cassettes and DVDs at the store have been marked with price labels ranging from less than $9 to as much as $45 for one-of-a-kind or rare classics.
If his life were a movie, the 1988 film “Tucker,” comes the closest to describing it now, McDonald said.
In that film, Jeff Bridges plays Preston Tucker, inventor of a futuristic 1950s car that never went into mass production because powerful competitors would not allow it.
“He believed in what he did until the very end,” McDonald said. “What put him out of business was politics and big money. He was fighting big corporations. He believed in everything he was doing — customer service, the way things were built. He never gave up until he was put out of business.”
McDonald said he sees a loose parallel between Tucker’s experiences and his own.
Six years ago, he was part of a large class-action lawsuit filed by independent video store owners against Blockbuster Inc., Viacom and Hollywood film studios.
According to a June 14, 2002, New York Times article, the original plaintiffs in that lawsuit were three video store owners from Sacramento, San Antonio and Syracuse, N.Y.
They claimed big film studios and Blockbuster had illegally conspired in the late 1990s and that Viacom persuaded studios to sell Blockbuster’s videos at much lower prices than what independent store owners could.
Plaintiffs settled out of court with some of the companies but other cases are pending, McDonald said.
He said he’s particularly concerned about the future of classic films on VHS because DVDs have become the primary format for video movies. McDonald said without high definition TV, it’s virtually impossible to tell the difference between VHS and DVD.
“DVDs are OK except they scratch really easily,” said McDonald, whose longtime employee, Rick Roberts of Lynnwood, has been with him for 18 years.
“He’s a walking encyclopedia about movies,” McDonald said.
The last VHS releases were completed in January 2006. Since then, only DVD movies have been put into distribution, McDonald said.
“They didn’t even put the final version of Star Wars on VHS, it’s only on DVD,” McDonald said. “That’s the sad part to me.”
And customer service, he said, seems to have lost out to price.
“What happened to customer service?” he asked. “When a person comes in here, we know every single movie in the store. When you go to a Blockbuster, they type it up in the computer and sometimes they’re not sure what the movie is. People will come in here and won’t know what a movie’s called but they’ll describe part of it and bam! We’ll know what it is.”
What’s next for McDonald?
“I don’t know,” he said, adding that he’d considered starting an Internet retail business, but on a much smaller scale than Netflix. He rejected that option as impractical and unprofitable.
“Thirty years is a long time to be in this business,” he said. “I’ll miss the people. I won’t miss the business. It’s gotten too commercialized.”
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