LeNell's Days Are Numbered
LeNell Smothers, owner of the eponymous wine and spirit shop in Red Hook, has been searching for a new space for her beloved store since last summer. Unfortunately — for LeNell and for all of her fans across the borough — her lease is about to run out and she’s still got nowhere to go….
LeNell Smothers, owner of the eponymous wine and spirit shop in Red Hook, has been searching for a new space for her beloved store since last summer. Unfortunately — for LeNell and for all of her fans across the borough — her lease is about to run out and she’s still got nowhere to go.
In a note to the shop’s mailing list (which wasn’t published online), LeNell explains that her current landlord, who apparently works for Baluchi’s, won’t renew her lease because he is planning to open his own business in the space. (No official word on whether he’s planning on opening another branch of the Indian chainlet.) LeNell says that she had a draft lease for the vacant lot next to Good Fork, but it fell through this week. One of the owners of the lot is Red Hook developer Greg O’Connell, who owns the Fairway building, among many other properties. LeNell writes:
“We had architectural drawings, had agreed on basic lease points, and I’ve been thinking all along that we were just finalizing details. The space included the store on the first floor and the bar on the second. After discussing this project for nearly a year now, I get a visit from Greg recently telling me that he has just realized constructions costs will be more than he wants to pay. He won’t entertain thoughts of my partnering in building out the space. Just flat out pulled out at the last moment…which happens to be a few days before the end of my current lease. I’m in shock.”
The second space LeNell was considering won’t work out, either, as her landlord wants her to sign a five-year lease, and she’s looking for a ten-year commitment. At the moment, LeNell’s is covered in plastic sheeting, due to a leak that the landlord isn’t interested in fixing, but there’s still time to stop by. The lease is officially up this month, but in LeNell’s words, “I know it will take months for a formal eviction should it come to that.”
Photo by jasminepark
She signed a lease. The lease is ending. Move on.
As an RH resident and someone with passing knowledge of the situation and its players, I feel obliged to speak up and say that Lenell’s is a neighborhood institution that is fiercely loved, and I’m appalled (not suprised; appalled) and bummed out that its owner has been so badly treated. Who knows what O’Connell’s side of the story is (though it is true that money doesn’t really seem like the issue for him). It would be a tragedy to lose the shop’s homey, low-key presence in the hood. That this coincides with the opening of the big blue monolith is coincidental but somehow apt.
We love you Lenell! Don’t give up hope!
She is a miserable person who wants everybody to cater to her needs. Have you ever caught her on a bad day? She makes you feel as if she is doing you a favor selling you her beloved whiskey. No wonder her husband left her.
Do us a favor – please move back down south.
this is just a biz transaction – not a metaphor for a changing neighborhood. she sounds dumb.
i own a small biz, and we are constantly talking about where to move to next, and that’s not for a couple of years!
find another space. big deal.
“Now bring on the giant garden gnome in the Monet that is Ikea.”
I think a more accurate metaphor might be, “Now bring on the giant Smurf in the Kienholz…”
Now, now, 11:48, PH (and any other neighborhood) could always use a few more liquor stores!
The situation she is in sucks but it is not the fault of the owner of her current space who wants to open his own business. However, she is opting to burn her current landlord because a different landlord burned her. This isn’t right.
She should pack up and vacate the space when her lease ends. It sucks if she doesn’t have somewhere else to go right away but if she stays beyond her lease and forces eviction then I have no sympathy for her.
there are more than enough liquor stores in Prospect Heights
Uh, isn’t a five-year lease better than no lease?