Best thrift stores in L.A. to shop for sustainable holiday gifts

The Coalition Thrift Store is another of Ventura’s cavernous warehouses filled with every kind of used merchandise and people eager to browse and buy. Donations were coming in so fast that employees were nearly running trying to shelve items, some of which hadn’t even been priced yet, and the line to make purchases reached halfway to the back of the wide, deep store, even with three cashiers at their posts.

This store is short on glamour, but if you can’t find something to buy here you really aren’t trying. Toys, furniture, racks of shoes, old 8-track tapes, a huge wall of books, a separate room for housewares and linens and long aisles of every type of clothes, including designer wear chained on the wall (and priced accordingly, such as the ribbed Chanel mini dress made in Italy for $200). I recently spotted a pair of 1930s-era black leather Converse “All Star” basketball shoes in pristine condition for $1,499.99, but you can also get a Hermione doll complete with shoes, socks, sweater, skirt and Gryffindor robe for $9, perfect-condition woven round placemats for 69 cents each, and an 8-track tape of “The Beatles (The White Album)” for $6. If I’m on a mission to find a specific used item, the Coalition is usually my first stop.

Open daily, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., except Sunday, when it opens at 10 a.m.