After 45 years of dinosaur T-shirts, glow-in-the-dark masks and Halloween costumes, Westwood Village's Aahs! gift store is closing its doors Tuesday. It's the last of what was once a sprawling Southern California novelty chain, and it's going out the way it came in — in the middle of a Halloween rush, with shelves emptying fast.
The store, located in Westwood Village, has dwindled down to one last location, which closes Tuesday following its final Halloween celebration, according to LAmag. Shoppers hoping to grab a last souvenir can still find remaining inventory marked down by as much as 80% through the weekend. The chain's roots trace back to 1981, when it opened its first storefront on Westwood Boulevard before this Westwood Village location later took root at the corner of Kinross Avenue and Westwood Boulevard, per the Daily Bruin.
From Record Shops to Novelty Empire
Aahs! was the brainchild of Jim Greenwood, who had already made his mark in Southern California retail by founding the Licorice Pizza record store chain in Long Beach back in 1969, according to the same LAmag report. After that venture, Greenwood wanted to break into the pop-culture-store business — he and his wife, Patty, originally planned to open an art gallery before pivoting to the gift-shop concept that became Aahs!.
The store built its identity in the 1980s selling novelty goods that defined the decade: dinosaur T-shirts, glow-in-the-dark masks and even Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker masks, per LAmag's report. Jim Greenwood described the shop's appeal in 1985 as featuring an eclectic grouping of contemporary paper products and gifts, while Patty Greenwood later summed up the brand's forward-looking ethos in 1987, saying, “We want what's coming. Not what has been or what is.”
A Regional Chain That Outgrew Its Roots
At its peak, Aahs! expanded well beyond Westwood, with locations in Thousand Oaks, Torrance, Santa Monica, Sherman Oaks, Encino and West Hollywood, the LAmag report notes. Jack Bhasin, described as the store's second owner, later took the reins and, according to the Daily Bruin, is now the store's owner of 43 years and current president. Bhasin has said customers would probably miss the store's enjoyable shopping experience, recalling the era as fun and saying the store made shopping and gift buying fun.
Bhasin pointed to a combination of factors behind the closure: declining foot traffic, recent business closures nearby and a lack of accessible parking, the Daily Bruin reported. Those pressures have hit Westwood Village broadly — Broxton Brewery, Urban Outfitters, Sarah Leonard Fine Jewelers and Espresso Profeta all shut down within the past year, per the same outlet. Urban Outfitters alone had operated in the Village for more than 22 years before closing in August.
Property Sale Adds to Westwood's Retail Churn
The Aahs! real estate itself was sold to UC Investments in September, LAmag reports, an entity tied to the University of California system that has recently acquired more than a dozen other properties in Westwood Village. The building at Kinross and Westwood still carries its 1990s postmodern façade, a holdover from an earlier era of the shopping district. Other nearby closures followed the broader property sales — Corner Bakery Cafe, which had operated at 1019 Westwood Boulevard, also shuttered in September, according to the Daily Bruin's follow-up coverage.
Earlier reporting from the Santa Monica Mirror had said the Westwood Village location would remain open, though that report did not include a closure date, creating some uncertainty about the store's fate before this week's confirmation. Westwood's retail struggles aren't new, either. A 2004 Los Angeles Business Journal report found that nearly a dozen retail stores had closed in Westwood Village over six months, with another half dozen preparing to leave, as merchants cited competition from UCLA's on-campus shopping options and a lack of affordable parking.
That same 2004 report found Westwood's overall retail vacancy at 7%, down from nearly 15% five years earlier — a sign the district has cycled through boom and bust before. One shoe-store owner quoted at the time, Rabin Soufer, said he was closing his Westwood location after losing $300,000 over five years, shifting his focus to a Melrose Avenue shop instead. For Aahs!, though, this closure marks the end of the line entirely, leaving Los Angeles without the novelty chain that once stretched across the region.
