Movie Gallery manager Rob Ferdig's video store has enjoyed a surge of new business since Blockbuster Video closed last week. (Baker City Herald/S. John Collins).

By JAYSON JACOBY

Last week’s Blockbuster news that the Baker City video and DVD rental store by that name had closed for business drove hundreds of area movie lovers to the town’s remaining rental shop, Movie Gallery.

andquot;The increase in our business was incredible,andquot; said Movie Gallery store manager Rob Ferdig. andquot;This whole week has been kind of a whirlwind.

andquot;I think the big test for us will be this week: can we keep up how busy we were last week? Because it was an especially busy weekend for us.andquot;

While Movie Gallery offers the human touch that many viewers appreciate andquot;Have you seen ‘Ghost Rider?’ Is it any good?andquot; the Baker City Albertsons store is using a self-serve red kiosk to dispense the DVDs shoppers wish to rent.

The Redbox kiosk is simple to operate. A touch screen prompts you to select from about 70 titles; each kiosk holds about 500 DVDs. Answer a few questions, slide your credit card through a slot, pull your movie out of another slot and you’re on your way.

A one-night rental costs $1. DVDs are due back to any of Redbox’s more than 3,600 locations by 7 o’clock the following evening. Anytime after that will cost you an additional dollar per day.

Subscribers can e-mail their request to www.redbox.com or call toll-free, 866-REDBOX3 to reserve a DVD at a particular kiosk.

The Redbox kiosk has replaced the video rental service a company called Video II used to provide in the Baker City Albertsons, said Patricia Pettit, the grocery store’s general merchandise manager. Those previously viewed DVDs sell for $9.99.

andquot;We went this way because it’s less expensive for customers and time-

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saving for employees,andquot; Pettit said. andquot;People say they like it. It’s self-serve like an automatic teller machine.andquot;

The Redbox kiosk was installed locally about six weeks ago, Pettit said, and it’s proven especially popular among travelers. One could, in theory, rent a handful of DVDs in Baker City, pop them in for the kids to watch, then return them to another Redbox kiosk the next day in, say, Provo, Utah.

In fact, Pettit’s father and brother-in-law, both truck drivers who live in Utah, are both fans of the service, she said.

There’s always Netflix, of course, a service designed for those of us who have a hard time returning our borrowed items on time. That’s one advantage of Movie Gallery’s approach, Ferdig said rentals aren’t late until the sixth day after checkout.

Part of him is sad to see the demise of a local competitor.

andquot;Competition is great. It keeps you on the right track, and makes you better,andquot; he said. andquot;But in another way, for us it’s the perfect time for them to go out. Summer is not our busy season.andquot;

Ferdig said his store isn’t likely to sell as many used DVDs for the time being, because most of them are in demand as rentals. The store’s andquot;copy depthandquot; stacks of available rentals andquot;is important to us,andquot; he said, andquot;so we’ll stop selling so many that are previously viewed.andquot;

It may be, he added, that Movie Gallery goes the way of its corporate partner, Hollywood Video, by renting out more of the game systems Nintendo Wii, Playstation 360 and the like as well as the systems’ most popular games.

One direction Movie Gallery isn’t going is expansion. For a time, Ferdig said, Movie Gallery considered adding tanning beds to its store in the Baker Towne Center until Unicel became Movie Gallery’s new next-door neighbor.

Now, with Maurice’s on the other side, there’s nowhere to go but up.

andquot;We’re not sure how we’re going to fill the void,andquot; he said, smiling. andquot;But if it’s anything like last week, it will be fun.andquot;