Furniture Factory Closeouts was storing purchased furniture, but is being evicted for not paying rent.
By MELIA BOWIE
Published June 5, 2004
HUDSON - About two months ago Joe Aloi started to get nervous.
In January, he and his wife, Mary, had spent about $2,400 on new furniture at Furniture Factory Closeouts at 8924 State Road 52 in the Plaza of the Oaks Shopping Center.
The Heritage Lakes couple, both 71, were retired and preparing to move into a new house that their daughter bought them in Trinity.
"They said they would hold the furniture for us in the warehouse," Joe Aloi said.
But recently, when he stopped by the store to look at new bargains and check on his purchases, he noticed the showrooms were getting bare.
"We went to the store yesterday and there was a sign," he said Tuesday. "It just said this store is closed."
Phillips Edison, the Ohio-based owner of the shopping center, is evicting the store's owners, Patrick and Perry Brown, for failure to pay rent.
The Browns, it seemed, were out of money. Phillips Edison was out of patience. And the Alois and other customers like them are out of luck.
"They have been in periodic default for the last three or four months," said Mark Addy, chief financial officer with Phillips Edison. "They owe for back rent plus rent for the remaining term of their lease."
The company has filed a lawsuit in Pasco County Circuit Court against Furniture Factory Closeouts, a tenant since 2002 with a lease until mid 2005.
"We're going to be in the same boat as the customers," said Addy. Except "the amount owed to us is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars."
In the interim, Addy said his company has "retaken possession of the property at SR 52. Typically in such cases, the furniture would be liquidated to pay off creditors, he added, although he would not say if that is likely in this instance.
Phone calls by the Times to a number listed to Patrick Brown were not returned.
Dennis Jones, with Pasco County's Department of Consumer Affairs, said Thursday he has received five complaints in the past two days.
"People have either got furniture there or ordered furniture there. They've got receipts, and they can't get their furniture," said Jones. "I've been telling them to get together and form a group. I don't know if they need to get a court order or what."
The company's occupational license is valid, and no complaints came in to the county about the store prior to its abrupt closing this week, said Jones.
That is small comfort to telemarketer Ann Calkins, 58. She spent about $4,000 there this May and in November 2003 on a headboard and footboard, night table and china chest.
"They said they were going to keep it right there at the store," she said, explaining she is remodeling her home in Veterans Village and was not ready to have it delivered. "I bought $4,000 worth of furniture, and now I have nothing.
"They never even called," she said.
The Alois in Heritage Lakes said they don't expect to see a refund or the china hutch and base, six chairs and the leather sofa they bought.
"It seemed like a good place to do business," said Joe Aloi, a retired insurance salesman and Port Richey postal carrier. "The prices were good; now we know why."
Aloi said the couple will make do. They still plan to move into the Trinity home.
"She won the lottery a few years ago," he said. "Are you sitting down? She cleared $18-million."
Even so, others are not as fortunate, he said.
So "at this point we would just like for it to be known that he (Brown) is the type of operator he is, so his name is mud in Florida," Aloi said.
