Shades of the Bay, a sunglasses shop, will close its doors at the end of the year after operating for nearly 30 years in the Downtown Annapolis Historic District.

Linda Mann, who started the business in 2008, has worked in retail for over 50 years. Now, nearly 20 years after she opened her shop on Main Street, near clothing retailer Helly Hanson, she is retiring to spend time with her loved ones and “start living the lifestyle [she has] been selling for the past 30 years.” The store will close Dec. 31, or whenever the store runs out of merchandise.

Mann, 64, has lived in the Annapolis area since the 1980s. She began selling sunglasses in the mid-1990s. After working at Shades Unlimited — which operated on Main Street — she bought the business in 1999. Almost 10 years later, Mann opened Shades of the Bay across the street and ran the two businesses concurrently until 2012 when Shades Unlimited closed.

Sunglasses at Shades of the Bay range in price from about $20 to about $800. Mann said her product is both a fun accessory and a “necessary” one to protect eye health.

“I just fell into it. I was drawn to the people in the industry and drawn to a product that was a lot of fun to sell, especially here in Annapolis,” she said. “[S]unglasses are [a] necessary accessory, which is really kind of cool, so everybody has to wear them. But it’s also an accessory, so you can buy multiple pairs and with your personality and, you know, it’s fun.”

Mann said that she always considered Shades of the Bay “the fun store on Main Street,” playing a curated playlist of music in her shop and at her booth at the annual boat shows. She will miss the customers and the downtown area, but said that “it [was] time to take care of Linda.” For now, she said she doesn’t plan on moving, but closing the business means that she can focus on caring for ailing loved ones and maybe do some traveling.

“I’m going to miss the people [and] I’m going to miss downtown, but I’ve had so much fun over the years. … I am humbled to my core with the outreach of the people in Annapolis and customers. I’m just absolutely humbled. I cannot believe that the people who are coming in and saying how much they’re going to miss us. I mean, I knew I had a little bit of an impact on the city but had no idea that I was going to get this type of response,” she said.

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