Legal Fees & Reopening Cost

Buckle up because here's a story for you. 

Imagine fulfilling your dream, opening an eSports Bar and Lounge and pouring your heart and soul into this place to only be forced into a mandated shut down due to Covid-19. Ok, so that sucked, but you couldn't predict that and you mustered through. Because you were open for such a short time (5 weeks) you were not eligible for any government assistance that all these other places were getting. 


Finally getting the clear to re-open! AMAZING! Surprise, that didn't last for very long and Governor Cuomo decided to do something called "zones" and we were right on the edge of being Orange Zone which meant we again had to shut down. Ok, this one should only be a few weeks right? Wrong again. Another few months go by without any updates on re-opening. 


Now here's the fun part- immediately on day 1 (I'm talking March) I emailed my landlord and said hey, do I have any options here? I'm still getting my feet wet with reopening and we don't have any emergency money yet- ZERO response. We negotiated some reduced rent with the Property Manager (after pleading with no response from the landlord), and paid those reduced rent checks in the beginning, The 2nd shut down hit us hard, and again we emailed, texted, called the landlord asking for help. Not only with rent, but during this time we found out that several items we paid (tens of thousands) of dollars for in the very beginning were never actually completed. So we were asking if they can give us an accurate breakdown, and since they have several thousand dollars of our money that was ill used, if they can apply that money towards any rent owed to bring the balance closer to Paid in Full. 


Nothing. No response, Nothing. 


SURPRISE! Guess who came in and changed our locks?! All we got was a letter in the mail from an attorney saying we were in contempt of the lease- so you can send us a letter but you can't answer the cries for help? 


We were then DEMANDED a LOT of money by way of wire transfer just to have them re-key so we can get in and get some of our personal belongings!! Now we had to hire a lawyer to fight, as the landlord has refused to actually provide us copies of our build out, and where they spent our money we paid directly to them. It should be a simple ask- hey can you send me a copy of my invoice? Nope- again zero response except for the demand of money, 


So now we are left trying to fight this battle with the landlord, after paying him all of the money we had set aside for re-opening, and still fighting just for a breakdown of what we actually owe!! 


So now we ask for help. Help spread our message to everyone you know. We are FIGHTING to come back, and we have been fighting this whole time. If you cannot donate money towards Legal Fees, Reopening, and the fact that we lost a lot of our product during the time he changed our keys- I am asking you to just SHARE! Let it be known what we are facing. We aren't getting the same help that other "more established" businesses are getting- we're doing this on our own! 


We hope to be back bringing you the best in Family Friendly entertainment in March, we just need a little help getting there.