A regular Source feature, Undercurrents explores issues, ideas and events as they develop beneath the surface in the Virgin Islands community.
Unless you have a subscription that comes through the mail, don’t bother looking on-island for the latest edition of O Magazine, Sports Illustrated, Vanity Fair, Cosmopolitan, Home and Garden, a New York Times – or anything published stateside.
The company that brought such publications into the territory abruptly ceased doing so a few weeks ago, with no explanation to many of the outlets that carried the products.
And according to one knowledgeable source, the story is the same throughout the Caribbean region.
Several V.I. retailers who spoke with the Source said their first clue that there was a problem came when they noticed their magazine racks were getting bare and that the few items left were out of date.
One retailer said the man who normally stocked his store told him all the local staff had been let go, and that’s the closest he came to any sort of notification.
“The one vendor on the island went out of business and we heard nothing from him,” said Justin Woods, manager of the Walgreens store on St. Thomas, who also said the distributor was a company called Caribbean Management.
Woods said he didn’t know exactly when it happened, but he looked up the records of the last delivery he received and added, “The last time I saw them was Feb. 10.” Woods said he’s working through Walgreens corporate offices now trying to find a way to supply the store.
William Patel, who manages the Island News and Gifts shop inside the Cyril E. King Airport terminal, said he’s been told that Caribbean Management, a distributor based in Florida, is restructuring. “They have not given me any idea” how long it will be before they are operating again.
“They picked up and left,” said another retailer who did not want his name used. “The Florida number (for Caribbean Management) is disconnected.”
Repeated calls by the Source to the Florida number listed for the company were met with a signal suggestive of disconnection.
Patel has interests in Puerto Rico and in St. Martin, besides St. Thomas, and said the same distributor services – or currently, does not service – all of them, as well as other islands in the region.
There is some confusion over whether Caribbean Management might have used another name in the Virgin Islands and whether it has any connection to Island Periodicals, a company that brought U.S. print media into St. Thomas for many years.
Licensing and Consumer Affairs Director Wayne Biggs said Monday that his office has no listing for Caribbean Management LLC and it should have if the company was doing business here. But Biggs suggested it might have been denied the right to use the name “Caribbean Management LLC” because it is very similar to some other existing businesses, so it may have used another name. As for Island Periodicals, the company did not renew its business license for 2013, Biggs said.
Island Periodicals is listed in the 2014 V.I. phone book, but the phone number is answered by an automated message of “your call did not go through.” Likewise the phone number for Island Newsstand on St. Croix elicits the message “the number you have dialed is not in service,” and the number for Island Periodicals in Puerto Rico also appears to be disconnected.
Neither Licensing Department nor V.I. Port Authority officials were aware of the development until contacted for comment Monday.
Port Authority public information officer Monifa Marrero said the lease for the airport gift shop does not require it to carry stateside publications for sale, but “it is a concern if it’s a product that customers are looking for” and can’t get. “We’re hoping that it’s resolved soon.”
Meanwhile some residents speculated that the problem may be partly due to the general international trend away from print and toward electronic media.
Linda Consolvo, who with husband Charles Consolvo used to own the airport outlet many years ago, said the books and magazine portion of business was always tough.
“I remember how little money is in that,” she said. “The margins (between purchase and sale price) are too low… you do it as a service; you don’t do it to make money.”
