Eideard

Post-It Notes

Body bags go for $20. Yellow crime scene tape is $6. Toe tags are normally $5, but they were sold out this month. The merchandise comes in a white plastic shopping bag that says “Los Angeles County Department of Coroner.”

Tucked in the corner of a squat brick building that houses a huge depository of the dead is the strangest of gift shops. For years, the county coroner has run the shop, aptly named Skeletons in the Closet, selling knickknacks playing off the rather morbid humor that the department’s business arouses in many people.

But it turns out that the shop’s slogan — “We’re dying for your business!” — is all too accurate. The shop was once supposed to make enough money to pay for an anti-drunken-driving course for teenagers that includes a visit to the morgue.

But a recent report from county auditors shows that it has not made a profit for years and is actually subsidized by the very program it was meant to finance…

“It’s certainly a problem for us from a financial sense,” said Craig Harvey, the director of operations for the coroner. “We’re not necessarily a place that has a lot of experience in business, so this is simply a kind of wake-up call to see if we can do better at selling what we have…”

But for the most part, the shop’s only marketing has been word of mouth and free publicity in the news media. The store has a rudimentary Web site and is only now starting to explore ways to use the Internet to drive sales through Amazon, eBay and Facebook. There, it hopes to find a larger market for sweatshirts, notepads and pens bearing the same logo that department officials display in the field…

Ms. Pereyda said that much of the merchandise in the store had been the same for years, leaving many regular customers eager for more. So she is brainstorming new ideas and is particularly excited about a shipment of water bottles that is supposed to arrive next month.

The containers will be labeled “bodily fluids.”

Sounds like a fun place.