She insisted it was a highly American name. Gostanian’s idea, meant to represent the candy she could always buy for a penny as a child. They called their mom: Can we have $1,000 to buy a bookstore? Also to their surprise, she said yes. But to their surprise, the owner said to bring him the money the next day and he’d sell them the place, books and all. The sisters, both avid readers, liked the idea of owning a bookstore - maybe have a cat to add character while they lounged around reading poetry, that kind of thing. Gostanian sent her younger sister to ask a struggling bookstore owner across from Fresno State if he’d sell his shop for $1,000. But while she loved the businesses, Kierejczyk said they weren’t making much of a profit. Gostanian had also opened a restaurant out of renovated trolley cars in south Fresno. Kierejczyk said accomplished Armenian oud player Richard Hagopian played his first show at the Orange Ogre. Sister Joyce Kierejczyk called it one of Fresno’s first “beat hippie scenes” - literally a swingin’ spot where customers could hop on an indoor swing while watching folk singers or drag shows. Gostanian graduated as a speech major with a minor in English and education from Fresno State and worked as a substitute teacher for a short time before opening the Orange Ogre Expresso Coffee House & Gourmet Kitchen in downtown Fresno in the early 1960s. And then she said, ‘Ride around the Manchester Mall.’ Of course, I was removed physically by security.”īefore Penny Candy was born, Ms. So she made me - with a Penny Candy shirt over the thing, or like a placard display - ride up the street. “She made me put on this fluorescent painter suit, the brightest thing she could find, and I think she put either a Nixon or a Reagan mask on me, and she had this ginormous like adult-size push scooter. She was always on the go.” Stamolis recalled one of his first days on the job at Penny Candy at age 15. She seemed indestructible, and she was super active until she took that fall in January. “It just never ever occurred to me that she could actually die.
“Until last fall, it didn’t register in my brain that she was even old - and she was 79 at the time,” Stamolis said. One of her former employees at Penny Candy, Tony Stamolis, 44, couldn’t believe it. Bankers could never see a need for a business like this.” The lifelong Fresno resident and proud Armenian woman died of congestive heart failure after breaking her back in January.
Gostanian quipped: “I’ve been turned down for loans by everybody.
#Candys vintage scene fresno tv
“And controversial, sharp-tongued Carole, who has clashed with bankers, city planners, fire marshals, politicians and millionaire businessmen, has gained a place in the spotlight of public notoriety, if not on the stage, radio and TV like she dreamed in the days of yore growing up amongst the vines.” Later in the story, Ms. It became a one-of-a-kind fixture in Fresno for decades that garnered criticism and fascination from residents.Ī Bee story printed in November 1976, titled “Offending Everybody,” described Penny Candy and its already high-profile owner: Her shop - its final and best-known location at Blackstone and Michigan avenues in central Fresno - was an early draw for shoppers eager to browse hundreds of posters, T-shirts and bumper stickers. Gostanian had a plethora of other ventures over the years - a coffee shop that became known as Fresno’s first gay bar, unsuccessful runs for local public office, a restaurant out of renovated trolley cars, a Halloween supplies shop, “Grandpa Charlie Marinades” and - nothing put her in the Fresno spotlight quite like Penny Candy. Carole Gostanian, the colorful and sometimes contentious owner of Penny Candy - a Fresno book shop turned novelty store in the 1960s that sold everything from pet rocks to adult gifts and drug paraphernalia - died Monday at the age of 80. She passed away on Apin Fresno, California.
This is the obit of Carol Gostanian from the Yost & Webb Funeral Home:Ĭarole Gostanian was born on Decemin Fresno, California to parents, Leo and Vivien (Michaelian) Gostanian.
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