Tina’s Guitars, a long-time favorite shop for many Norman musicians, closed its doors this weekend after more than 20 years on Campus Corner.

Located at 762 Asp Ave., the store was opened in 1987 by local guitar enthusiast Chris Cojeen.

Graham Lee Brewer, Tina’s employee and professional writing graduate student, said the store has been a side-business for Cojeen during most of its existence.

“It hasn’t been in this exact location but it’s been on campus for 23 years,” Brewer said. “Chris has an archaeologist business, Cojeen Archaeological Services, but he just kind of opened the shop because he loves guitars, and he’s been playing since he was a little kid. There’s just so much oil and natural gas work that he doesn’t have time to run the store anymore.”

Brewer said another reason for the shop’s closing was a recent change in management at guitar supplier Epiphone Musical Instruments.

“Chris mainly dealt in Epiphones and they’re under new management now, and they basically told all the small dealerships ‘You have to make a said amount of money for us each year’,” Brewer said. “They pulled out of all the small businesses, so I think when they pulled out that took a lot of the business away.”

Brewer said he had many memories of Tina’s before he started working in the shop.

“It’s sad to see it go. I bought one of my first guitars here like 12 years ago when I first started playing,” he said. “The thing I always liked about this store growing up is that you can tell it’s ran by somebody who just likes music. I think he just does it because he likes music, it’s not because he wants to make a lot of money off it.”

Norman resident Frank Wright said he was saddened to hear the “little guitar shop on the corner” was leaving campus permanently.

“It was always a little hole-in-the-wall type of place that I liked coming into when I could,” Wright said. “There seem to be less and less of these type of genuine music-lover stores around.”