By Richard Gaines
Staff writer
April 09, 2008 06:38 am
"Go Red Sox" was written on the blackboard outside the West End bar yesterday, but Opening Day at Fenway Park was closing time for Jazzy Joe's.
At the behest of a pair of impatient creditors, the law stepped in, locked the door and put out the lights.
Soon after bartender-manager Jill Schmidt opened the door at 11 a.m., and before the first customer arrived, Essex County Deputy Sheriff Gil Medeiros walked in with a court order for an asset seizure ordered by Gloucester District Court on behalf of one of the music bar's many creditors — its former lawyer, Patricia Johnstone.
"It's closed; they're toast," said Johnstone's attorney, Mark Nestor.
Along with the loss of her liquor license, which could be sold to pay off the creditors, Jazzy Joe's owner Sonia Anderson also faces eviction as a related legal action proceeded on a parallel track yesterday.
David Smith, attorney for the landlord — the owners of Jalapeno's, the Mexican restaurant with which Jazzy Joe's shares the brick storefront — said Anderson had missed a 5 p.m. Monday deadline to file a $4,800 bond to keep open the option to appeal a judgment that found the business in default on three months rent.
The "this-property-has-been-seized" sticker that Medeiros pasted to the door summarized the tenuous status of a bar with uptown aspirations. The owners were making a bid to leave the cramped quarters at 84 Main St. it shares with Jalepeno's and move to the vacant Empire property directly across Main Street from the enlarging Gloucester Cooperative Bank.
Two months ago, Anderson notified the Licensing Board by letter that she had a lease agreement with Michael Butter, owner of the Empire building, to take the full 7,200 square feet and expand the club to let it bring in more big-time bands and expand restaurant service.
Yesterday, Nestor said, "We will move to sell the license unless they come up with the money." He said he would work with Smith to coordinate legal action to keep the club closed until both debts are paid.
Anderson and her partner, Joe Foley, seemed blindsided by the legal action that put a new lock on the door and emptied the place on Medeiros' orders.
"There's $85 in the cash register," Schmidt reported.
"Take it with you," Medeiros told her. "We can't seize the cash."
"I'm a small-business person trying to make a living," said Anderson when she arrived around noon after getting called by Schmidt. "This is a totally underhanded thing. I'm furious."
"We're getting strong-armed by a bunch of guys who got greedy," Foley said.
Anderson has counter-sued the owners of Jalepeno's — the Cuatro Amigos Nominee Trust. She claims the restaurateurs, who purchased the real estate in 2005, discovered that Jazzy Joe's had a tenant-favoring lease, and have been trying to push her and her partner out with harassment tactics.
Anderson's suit against the trust charges Jalepeno's' owners with "a campaign of harassment and intimidation" to force Jazzy Joe's out of its 10-year lease, which runs $1,200 a month and goes up in $50 increments every 10 years over the course of two 10-year extensions that are available to the tenant.
Anderson and Foley have also alleged that Johnstone had violated her obligation to Jazzy Joe's by becoming the attorney for Jalepeno's, where her husband is employed part-time as a bartender.
Johnstone denied any conflict of interest. She said she negotiated the favorable lease for Anderson before Jalepeno's acquired the building, and advised Anderson she would cease to represent her in any conflict with the Mexican restaurant.
The unpaid $6,000 legal bill, she noted, was from the initial legal work before Jalepeno's bought in.
Karl Stammen, Anderson's attorney, did not return phone calls, but last month he told the Times, "We've got a great lease. The landlords are out to get my people."
Although she and Foley missed the deadline for filing the $4,800 bond and paying the $1,200 month's rent that a two-judge appeals panel had demanded of Anderson to secure the right to appeal the eviction order, she was adamant that Jazzy Joe's is not going to go away.
"This is far from over," she told the Times. "We will be open again."
Richard Gaines can be reached at rgaines@gloucestertimes.com
—
Copyright © 1999-2008 cnhi, inc.
Photos
Main Street bar Jazzy Joe's was closed yesterday morning by Essex County Deputy Sheriff Gil Medeiros. Medeiros was acting on an order by Gloucester District Court. Staff photo