David Cioffi, manager of the Dartmouth Bookstore, was not at all flustered when an employee working on the main floor called an upstairs office to report that a shoplifting was in progress.
Cioffi calmly listened to the sales clerk describe how an elderly woman had placed items into her tote bag, insisting she had already paid for them. Cioffi nodded, told the clerk he would be right down to help and hung up and called the Hanover Police.
Cioffi raced to the first floor where he found Frannie Carr, an elderly women, with several products any grandmother would carry in her bag: notepads, bookmarks and stationary.
Cioffi gently but firmly retrieved the goods from Carr as he explained to her that she never purchased them, as evidenced by the fact that she did not have a receipt.
A police officer walked up to the scene of the crime within moments and helped explain the reality and gravity of the situation to Carr. The officer took a few notes and then let Carr get on the departing bus to return to her nearby home.
Cioffi laughed as he reentered the bookstore. With a mixture of concern and levity, he said such an incident symbolized a "typical day" for him at the Dartmouth Bookstore.
He said Carr had caused the store some trouble before and was a nuisance supposedly taken care of by guardians who try to keep her hands away from private goods.
Experienced and level-headed, Cioffi returned to his work for the past 19 years: managing the Dartmouth Bookstore, Hanover's largest retail outlet.
Along Main Street and Allen Street, five connected buildings containing more than 260,000 square feet compose the bookstore. Cioffi said the store carries more than 150,000 titles -- more than Barnes & Nobles and several other national chains.
Cioffi and politics
The epitome of a small businessman, Cioffi is also an ardent Republican who participates in politics on both the municipal and national levels.
Cioffi is the local chairman for Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole's presidential campaign.
As a Republican, Cioffi said he finds himself a minority in Hanover.
"It's a heavily Democratic town," he said. "The College tends to be more liberal ... than other people around the area."
Despite his role as a town leader, he said he does not see himself as a local power figure.
"One of the problems is, in Hanover, retailers are a very small minority," he said. "We have little clout."
Cioffi used to be a Hanover selectmen for four years.
"That takes a lot of time," he said. "I don't have time anymore."
Still concerned about local policy, Cioffi sits on a suspended committee slated to address Hanover's parking problem. The committee was hoping to obtain land owned by Shawmut and Fleet banks, but now that the two banks are merging, the land cannot be altered until the merger is complete.
"Within 1996, the smoke should clear," he said. Then, the committee hopes to develop some space in downtown Hanover that would cut slices out of both banks' parking lots.
The business
A native of Rutland, Vt., Cioffi moved to Hanover in 1972 and took over the management of the bookstore in 1976. Since then, he has worked to expand and modernize the operation.
To improve business in the 1980s, Cioffi said he divided the textbook section from the rest of the store. Before then, many of the store's non-student customers would go out of their way to avoid shopping there at the beginning of terms when students would swamp the store.
"The lines used to spread to Main Street, past the camera shop," he said.
Cioffi oversaw the alterations and physical expansion of the store, which included installing a new roof over one of the buildings.
Since then, Cioffi said "other customers hardly know students are there."
Cioffi also started installing a computer system in the bookstore around 1985. "There was no way without a computer," he said.
Cioffi, who said he plans to "be here for quite a while," is married to Ann Stebbins, a descendant of the Storrs family who has owned the store since 1883, making the Dartmouth Bookstore the oldest store in America continuously owned by the same family.
Cioffi likes to keep himself busy -- in his spare time, he cross-country skis, bicycles and plays golf at the Hanover Country Club. He said he used to be a frequent fly-fished and has biked the Italian Alps.
Before coming to Hanover, Cioffi graduated from the University of Vermont then worked for PepsiCo's marketing department in New York City. He later worked as a manager for a Martin's Foods wholesale outlet and Super Duper grocery store.
An Etna resident, Cioffi married his wife in 1966 and they have two children. His daughter Catherine graduated from Brown University and is now a sophomore at Columbia University's medical school, and his son is a freshman at Arizona State University.
