This is a deliberate attempt by the owners of the bookstore to make press about the minimum wage causing them to close down. As apparently Alan and Judy are owner operators, doing very little business so hopefully not requiring much external labour, this is a slightly contorted argument. Who would complain that they are not paying themselves the minimum wage and couldn't they structure it so they were not employees of their own partnership?

The unfortunate fact is that the owners have so far been able to exploit this location poorly. Valencia St around that block is now very highly sought after with numerous new glitzy businesses opening up in the last few years. If they were lucky enough to own the property or have a transferable lease they would now have an opportunity to make a huge profit on selling it to someone willing to cater to the yuppie crowd. The fact that this is not referred to in the blog post is quite disingenuous.

Another bookshop that closed down in SF was much more honest about the reasons without a weird political agenda: http://missionlocal.org/2015/01/a-heaven-for-books-moves-on/

If one takes a right wing point of view then the fact that the space will now be used more efficiently is definitely beneficial, so if the minimum wage were to blame then must be good ;)

From the point of view of the left, the question might be whether the bookstore should be subsidized to provide a living wage to its employees and owners. This is rather difficult to support as it is unclear that there is any benefit accrued to anybody beyond a sort of nostalgic effect of having a rather empty bookshop on a busy street, and if that space should be subsidized it should be made more widely useful.