Bart & Greg’s DVD Explosion, a movie buff’s haven in downtown Brunswick for 15 years, will close at the end of December.

Owner Bart D’Alauro said Monday he decided Nov. 30 to close the store because rentals, which have been declining for years, had fallen too low to make the store viable. He said that November is often the store’s best month, but this year it was the worst.

He’s been telling customers about the planned closing, but hadn’t put up any signs or posted anything online as of Monday.

“There’s been a lot of sadness,” D’Alauro said. “But the people we’re telling are our loyal customers, so they really couldn’t do any more for us.”

The store has an eclectic selection ranging from Hollywood blockbuster to art house fare. The store is in the Tontine Mall on Maine Street, an easy walk to Bowdoin College.

Online streaming services like Netflix have eroded the demand for video stores around the country over the past decade. Portland’s best-known independent video store and mecca for movie buffs, Videoport, closed in 2015 after 28 years in business.

Bart & Greg’s was opened in 2002 by D’Alauro and Greg Morris, who is no longer involved in running the business. The two had worked at another independent Brunswick video store, Matt and Dave’s Video Venture, in the 1990s. When Matt and Dave’s closed many people lamented a college town like Brunswick losing its independent video store, so D’Alauro and Morris decided to try to fill the void.

In 2016 D’Alauro teamed with the Frontier theater in Brunswick to present a monthly movie series focusing on acclaimed foreign films not shown in Maine, with pre- and post-film discussions.

D’Alauro also works at the Bowdoin College library, which is part of the reason he was able to keep the store open this long, he said.

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