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Dave Whaley, store manager at Dave's Music Mine on the South Side, is surrounded by vinyl records on Tuesday. The store will close this spring after 20 years.
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Dave's Music Mine on the South Side is closing

Darrell Sapp/Post-Gazette

Dave's Music Mine on the South Side is closing

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One of Pitts­burgh’s lon­gest-run­ning record stores is clos­ing.

Dave’s Mu­sic Mine, a fix­ture on the 1300 block of East Car­son Street on the South Side, will close this spring af­ter 20 years. This is the last full week for the store, which will re­main open on week­ends through May, when the lease is up, and per­haps un­til an­other busi­ness moves into the space.

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Dave Wha­ley, who man­ages the store owned by Dave Pa­na­siuk, said Tues­day, “Busi­ness has been slow over the past few years. We’re sell­ing a de­cent amount of vi­nyl but not get­ting as much foot traf­fic.”

Not get­ting foot traf­fic on Car­son Street?

“If we don’t sell beer, they’re not com­ing in,” he said.

Dave’s be­gan in 1996 when Pa­na­siuk pur­chased Jerry Weber’s store above the McDon­ald’s in Oak­land when Mr. Weber moved his op­er­a­tion to Squir­rel Hill. Dave’s ex­panded for a time to mul­ti­ple lo­ca­tions and then scaled back to the one store on the South Side, which opened in May 2000, tak­ing the place of Randy’s Al­ter­na­tive Mu­sic.

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Dave’s has spe­cial­ized in new and used vi­nyl, along with selling CDs, DVDs, VHS, cas­settes and con­cert tick­ets.

Mr. Wha­ley es­ti­mated that there are be­tween 10,000 and 50,000 pieces of vi­nyl in the store and count­less CDs. While vi­nyl has main­tained or in­creased its value, CDs have dropped in price by more than half in re­cent years. Un­til the store closes, just about ev­ery­thing will be buy-one-get-one-free.

Mr. Pa­na­siuk, who works for the Univer­sity of Pitts­burgh at the Peter­sen Events Center, said in a text: “The close is hum­bling but pos­i­tive at the same time on our end.” He added that Dave’s will con­tinue to ex­ist on­line through Am­a­zon, eBay and Dis­cogs.

Mr. Wha­ley, who is the only full-time em­ployee, has been work­ing at Dave’s since Sep­tem­ber 1996 and will end his run this week­end.

He says he’s get­ting a re­sume to­gether, but “it’s only one page be­cause I’ve been here for 23 years.”

The good news is that Pittsburgh still has its share of record outlets, with Jerry's Records (Squirrel Hill), Eide's Entertainment (Downtown), The Attic (Millvale), The Government Center and Get Hip (North Side), Cruel Noise/Skull Records (Polish Hill), Vinyl Remains (Mt. Lebanon), along with the Exchange stores. A new store called The DJ Connection, with about 3,000 records to start, is opening this week in Bridgeville.

Scott Mer­vis: smer­vis@post-ga­zette.com.

First Published: January 7, 2020, 3:52 p.m.

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Dave Whaley, store manager at Dave's Music Mine on the South Side, is surrounded by vinyl records on Tuesday. The store will close this spring after 20 years.  (Darrell Sapp/Post-Gazette)
Dave Whaley says vinyl sales are still strong at Dave's Music Mine, but foot traffic is down.  (Darrell Sapp/Post-Gazette)
Dave Whaley looks through merchandise at Dave's Music Mine, 1210 E. Carson St., South Side.  (Darrell Sapp/Post-Gazette)
Prices for compact discs are down at Dave's Music Mine.  (Darrell Sapp/Post-Gazette)
Dave's Music Mine has 10,000-50,000 vinyl records.  (Darrell Sapp/Post-Gazette)
Andy Bartel of the South Side looks over the selection of CDs at Dave's Music Mine on Tuesday.  (Darrell Sapp/Post-Gazette)
Dave Whaley prepares and stacks online orders at Dave's Music Mine.  (Darrell Sapp/Post-Gazette)
Concert posters at the entrance of Dave's Music Mine on the South Side.  (Darrell Sapp/Post-Gazette)
Dave's Music Mine at 1210 E. Carson St.  (Darrell Sapp/Post-Gazette)
Darrell Sapp/Post-Gazette
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