Barnes & Noble in Woodland Hills closed doors tonight

Tonight's closure of the Barnes & Noble store in the Westfield Promenade shopping center leaves just two of the book chain outlets in the Valley, none of them within the city of Los Angeles portion (population about 1.5 million people.) The surviving Barnes & Noble stores are in Calabasas and Burbank. There is also a smaller B&N-owned Bookstar in Studio City. Borders previously closed all of its Valley stores.

Barnes & Noble had been in the Promenade mall for eleven years, says the Daily News' Gregory Wilcox:

The company, which has almost 700 locations nationwide, did not disclose the reason for closing this location. [Manager David] Clark said the reason was not shared with him and officials of the New York City-based chain did not return phone calls or emails on Monday.

A Westfield spokeswoman also declined to comment, saying they were confidential to the landlord/tenant relationship.

The Promenade store started winding down operations a month ago and by midday Monday some shelves were bare, others were bundled together and tables stacked on top of each other waiting to be moved out.

Many of the furnishing are being donated to local schools and the West Valley Boys & Girls Club.

There was a bit of a fuss when the Barnes & Noble store in Encino closed on New Year's Eve in 2010. It was located in a mall at Ventura Boulevard and Hayvenhurst Avenue that was run by developer Rick Caruso's company. Neighbors tried to pressure Caruso to keep the bookstore open rather than lease the space to a CVS drug store, but they were unsuccessful.

There are still Barnes and Noble stores outside the Valley in Thousand Oaks and Valencia, and over the hill in Santa Monica and at Caruso's The Grove, as well as in other locations around Southern California. The Barnes & Noble in the Westside Pavilion closed earlier this year.

Photo: Barnes & Noble