The Gannett-owned Salinas Californian shut down its presses today (Sept. 19) and will turn over the duty of printing the daily newspaper to Southwest Offset Printing (SOP), which has a plant in Redwood City.

However, SOP plans to move its pressroom to a new plant at 587 Charcot in North San Jose in January. That plant currently prints the Palo Alto Daily Post, Palo Alto Weekly, Financial Times and numerous other papers.

E&P reports that the move eliminated the jobs of nine full-time and six part-time workers, who were able to apply for jobs at the San Jose facility. SOP, says Californian General Manager Terry Feinberg, “ended up making offers to five of our guys, and three of them accepted.”

The six-day paper circulates 10,791 copies weekdays and 13,100 copies of Saturdays.

Gannett, which owns the Californian, has also moved the printing of its Northern California editions of USA Today from the Marin Independent Journal to SOP. That switch (reported by the Press Club on May 19) has raised eyebrows since the IJ is owned by a partnership that includes Gannett as a minority shareholder (19.49%) and MediaNews Group as the majority shareholder (54.23%).