De Lauer's Newstand Opens Saturday on Park Street

An Alameda branch of Oakland's fabled De Lauer's newsstand will open for business this Saturday, Sept. 14, store manager James Hartig said Wednesday.

The store at 1412 Park St. will be open from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily, Hartig said.

It will sell a wide variety of magazines, including foreign titles, and many English-language comic books, but few of the international newspapers that were once a staple at the flagship Oakland store.

The Alameda store will also offer maps, souvenirs, snacks, bottled drinks, lottery tickets and a small smoke shop specializing in fine cigarettes and cigars, Hartig said. It will have an ATM on the premises.

Hartig said he thinks this is the first-ever branch of the original De Lauer's, which began selling newspapers from small wagons in 1907, then progressed to a street kiosk and various storefront locations before finding its long-term home at 1310 Broadway, Oakland in the mid-20th century.

"I worked at the Oakland store for three years, so this is a promotion for me," Hartig said.

The Oakland store, which is open 24 hours a day, nearly closed permanently in 2008. Owner Charles De Lauer, 91, son of the store's founder, developed leukemia and faced a combination of rising costs and large losses to theft, according to a 2008 article in the San Francisco Chronicle.

In a last-minute move, De Lauer sold the business to a longtime employee, Fasil Lemma, a native of Ethiopia, who has continued to operate the Oakland store, Hartig said.

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