Moby Disc runs out on lease, cites an inability to meet campus needs
By Daily Bruin Staff
Feb. 11, 2002 9:00 p.m.
 After only two years of business, video and music store
Moby Disc in Ackerman Union is closed.
By Debra Marisa Greene
Daily Bruin Contributor
UCLA’s Moby Disc is a financial whale of failure.
The company lost its only college campus location when it
suddenly shut down last weekend.
In their first fiscal year from Sept. 2000-01, Moby Disc’s
total sales were $489,769 as compared to its yearly projection of
$1,250,000.
The store closed three years and seven months before the lease
was scheduled to terminate.
Moby Disc, a used and new music and video store, has been
renting space from the Associated Students of UCLA on the A-level
of the Ackerman Student Union since it opened in September,
2000.
There was a meeting on Jan. 22 with Moby Disc and ASUCLA
officials discussing the financial slump of the operation. They
talked about looking for a replacement music store.
ASUCLA was shocked to see Moby Disc shut down.
“We were outraged to see Moby Disc vacate without
warning,” said Financial Director of ASUCLA Richard
Delia.
“There is a difference between looking for another tenant
and abandoning the premises,” Delia added.
In Delia’s six-year history of working for ASUCLA, he said
he never encountered a store that closed like this.
“This is highly unusual,” he said.
However, president of Moby Disc Steve Furst said that there was
proper notification.
“I think a meeting where you say you are going to find a
replacement is a proper warning,” Furst said.
“It’s not our style to close a store, but we have
good reasons and are trying to find the right tenant,” Furst
said.
Delia said that usually if a store is having problems, it will
approach ASUCLA and renegotiate its rent.
Furst said that a store can only exist if it stands alone.
“If you don’t have a profitable store, you should
close it,” he said.
The company was added to UCLA in response to student survey
results conducted during the year 2000 that listed a Music/CD store
as one of the top five services students would like to see added to
student union. In fact, students ranked a music retailer as their
number one choice.
Furst said that in the beginning he thought that students wanted
a used music and video store, like Moby Disc.
But, he said that “a merchant knows what customers want
after a year of being there.
“We can’t survive because we can’t respond to
students needs,” Furst added.
The company discovered that students wanted new CDs and videos
and were not interested in selling them back.
“I never get anything here because I would rather download
music from the Internet,” said fourth-year chemical
engineering student Marcella Yu.
Another reason it has not survived on a college campus is
because of the holidays, according to Delia and Furst.
During the summer and winter breaks, there are few students
shopping at the student union.
“On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, this store was closed and
did nothing, but our other stores were very successful,”
Furst said.
Director of Student Union and Student Support Services Jerry
Mann said he thought the financial difficulties of Moby Disc are
because of its lack of marketing.
Some students were unaware of its presence.
“I have never been there and never knew it existed,”
said fourth year philosophy student Juhani Yli-Vakkuri
Furst disagrees: “We advertised in the Daily Bruin and
participated in every major event by discounting items during
(ASUCLA’s) big sales,” he said.
The student interest survey is conducted every other year to
detect students’ needs. The next one will be conducted in
April.
Mann said it may better reveal student preferences.
“People’s tastes change which sometimes causes a
location to free up space and bring in a better concept,”
Mann said.
As for now, ASUCLA will try to find a music store to replace it.
However, it is willing to open another type of store if an offer
arises.
ASUCLA is turning this case over to UCLA’s corporate real
estate department which will take any appropriate legal
actions.
