The sad part about ASAP shutting down, is that as a far northern california retail store manager we just lost one of only three easy sources of livestock.
Of the remaining two wholesalers that actually deliver as far north as I am, they are only really capable of stocking me with the "bread and butter" type stock.
now our choice boils down to keep trying to stock our store with common items and see how long we can hold out, or one of us will have to try quitting our full time job and see if we can make the drive down to LA <10 hours south of us> a couple of times a month.
Sadly I don't think there is enough call for exceptional pieces in my area to make that drive worth while.
In my area we have 5 stores that carry saltwater.
One carried a full line of pet supplies, and he changed the saltwater section from 20 tanks to 5 tanks, and turned the live rock bins into turtle tanks, etc...
Another small family owned pet shop closed it's doors last month, and another one eliminated it's saltwater, and freshwater fish section.
That leaves just the two full line saltwater/freshwater stores, and then of course Petco, petsmart.
I'm not sure how long the owner of my store can hang onto the store, but the good side, is he has a full time job, and has his son run the store until he gets off work, so his cost of running the store is down, and his income is up due to his other job.
But until we find a wholesaler that can actually cherry pick for me, we will not have much for a selection.
I am currently working on a way to start going to down south atleast once a month to hand pick corals, but nothing is working out so far.
