Harringtons Retire, But Their Camera Store Will Live On

Occasionally, in this era of rampant business mergers and the malling of America, little miracles happen, and the value of a town’s mom-and-pop retail atmosphere is reaffirmed. Last Saturday morning, in a driving rainstorm, patrons and friends of Harrington’s Camera came to say goodbye to owner Cathy Rodriguez, who had announced 10 days earlier that she was having a retirement party at the store’just hours before closing a business that was founded by her parents, John and Celeste Harrington, in 1958. Unbeknownst to the partygoers before they arrived at the store, Rodriguez had been quietly negotiating for several months with Swan Photo Labs of San Clemente to sell the business, but not until Friday at 3 p.m. did owner Philip Steblay call Rodriguez to announce that they had a deal. Suddenly, Rodriguez and her husband Ruben, a retired businessman, knew they were free to begin enjoying their joint retirement on January 1, without having to pay the remaining seven months of their lease had a sale not gone through. “Retired and ready to go,” said their Christmas card, which showed the couple riding a jet ski. Equally important, Rodriguez was relieved to know that the family store would not only remain in expert hands (“Swan Photos has been doing our processing for about five years and we love their work,” Rodriguez said), but would continue to be called Harrington’s Camera. Joined by her father, who has lived in the Palisades since coming out from Chicago with his young family in 1954, Rodriguez smiled radiantly as she delivered the good news to the many well-wishers who came to the store Saturday. And she handed out a thank you letter that said in part, “My intention was to close the store upon retiring; however, the many pleas by customers and the persistence of the owners of Swan Photo Labs” convinced her to try to keep Harrington’s open by working out a sale. The new owner joined the festivities and later told the Palisadian-Post why he wanted to open a retail store in addition to his photo lab. “My father was an aerial photographer stationed at Norton Air Force Base in San Bernardino during World War II,” Philip Steblay said, “and he opened a store much like Harrington’s around 1947. As time went on he got more into photo processing but always had retail stores as well.” His company, Phototron Corp, eventually had 10 large labs across the country and more than 120 photo drive-thru stores called Clic Photo'”like the old Fotomat stores.” After college, Steblay worked at Phototron until the company was sold to Kodak about 15 years ago, and he then worked for Kodak Processing Labs for 10 years as VP of management systems. In January 2003 he started Swan Photo Labs with his partner, Keith Swan, and “we have grown very quickly in a challenging environment.” They now own a retail store in Costa Mesa and a processing lab in the San Francisco area. “I met the Harringtons by doing their photo processing,” Steblay said. “They are a wonderful family and remind me very much of my own. That’s a big reason for our purchasing the store. I want to see it continue to serve the community and would very much like to see the Harrington legacy continue.” Steblay asked, “How many retail stores are still in business after nearly 50 years? I may be a bit nostalgic but I think it’s worth working to keep it going and improve things by embracing the digital photography that is the future (and present) of this industry.” He said he would be adding digital printing kiosks as well as other services like transferring old slides and movies to DVD, restoring old photos, taking passport photos, holding digital camera classes and providing “all photographic services you can think of.” “We are searching for a store manager who shares our passion,” Steblay continued. “We haven’t completed our renovation plans, but we’ll be transforming Harrington’s over the next several months into a state-of-the-art imaging center with ‘soul.'” He added, “We are still negotiating with the landlord [David Licht, the owner of neighboring Kay ‘N’ Dave’s] for a fair long-term lease. It’s getting hard in the village to figure out how to pay the astronomical rents being asked for, and we are going to need the support and business from the entire community to make this all work.”