Arts Hawai'i owner Gary Oda said he held on for as long as he could despite lagging sales over the past few years. But Oda said he has finally reached the breaking point and will close the 60-year-old family business next week.

He hasn't set a date for the closure, but Oda said it likely will be between July 18 and 20.

"I should have closed down five years ago, but because it was a family business passed on, it made it more difficult to say, 'OK, we're going to close,' " said Oda, 59.

Oda's parents, Frank and Ethel, opened Hawai'i Glass and Arts in December 1946 and renamed the business Arts Hawai'i five years later. The company specialized in sand-blasted etched-glass products, with each item done by hand.

In 1973, Frank and Ethel Oda wanted to shut down the business, but Gary Oda told them he would return from England, where he was in art school, to take over the company.

Oda said Arts Hawai'i grew during the Japanese visitor "boom" years of the 1970s and 1980s. The etched-glass products were popular with visitors, and Oda said he made enough money to sustain the business through the 1990s.

But with the proliferation of cheap knockoffs from China selling for a third of what he charges, and the loss of his big customers, such as Liberty House and Mark Christopher, sales began to decline. Arts Hawai'i went into the red and Oda said it was time to acknowledge that his company could no longer be profitable:

"Things just kept adding up and the market was getting smaller and smaller. It's not just the Chinese. Every gift item is competition and as more and more stuff came onto the market, it just got smaller and tighter."

Oda has spent the past few weeks selling his inventory at discounted prices and preparing to close for good. He also has been saying goodbye to many loyal customers who say they don't know where they will go for customized etched glassware.

Denise Fujie of Maunalani Heights dropped by the Pi'ikoi Street store on Monday to buy some wine glasses for wedding gifts. She also picked up a few other items after finding out that the store was going to close.

"It's sad because you knew that you could always count on certain places for certain things and every time you would come here you would get really good personalized service — always very friendly. Where can you go to get the same thing?" Fujie said. "They say change is good, but sometimes change is bad, too."

Oda will continue to do etched-glass work from his new home in Kansas City, Mo., where his family is moving to be closer to his adopted daughters' relatives. He said he will sell primarily through the Internet, so his Hawai'i customers will be able to continue getting his glassware. But Oda said he will be a one-man operation — Arts Hawai'i has five employees — and won't be able to produce as much as the company does now.

Oda's father died in 2001. But his mother is saddened by the closure — though Oda said she understands why he's doing it.

"I tell her that she and my father started the business that's lasted over 60 years, and that not one in 1,000 lasts that long," Oda said.

Reach Curtis Lum at culum@honoluluadvertiser.com.