A recent article in the Daily Camera reported that we had reached a settlement with the church but this agreement needs context. What we signed was an amendment to our lease that Flatirons had presented to us under the threat of eviction if we did not sign by the 27th of June. This eviction, of course, would not be for the non-payment of rent but for the refusal to be forced into another space within the center which is allowed under our lease but only if certain conditions are met. The eviction would have been perfectly legal, however, because the conditions that needed to be met by the church did not need to take place until after the eviction. Sound complicated? That’s because it is. If we had allowed the church to begin eviction proceedings against us for refusing to sign, we would have found ourselves in a very difficult legal position and might well have found ourselves forced out of business. We had been in the process of attempting to negotiate more favorable terms with the church to leave the center altogether, but the threat of eviction that was always hanging over us put as at a clear disadvantage, not to mention extreme mental stress. What made this threat so difficult to deal with were the legal realities covering the relocation clause in our lease. While the primary purpose for these relocation clauses is to help a landlord retain a tenant while acquiring a new tenant or accommodating an existing tenant expansion, in our case, it was being used to get rid of us. When we originally threatened to take legal action against the church, it was because the church was maintaining that they had the right to force us to move into any space in the center they wanted as long as it contained an equal or greater number of square feet than our current location and it would be our responsibility, at our expense, to make the space suitable for our business – that was the way they interpreted the lease and we have written documentation of their position. There is, unfortunately, enough ambiguity in the wording of the lease that someone could make this case and the church chose to take maximum advantage of that ambiguity. It took us a while, then, to clarify the legal position that a far more defensible reading of the lease is that the church is required to make the space they want to force us into “substantially similar” to the space we now occupy at the church’s expense prior to forcing us to move. Once we were confident that if the church did not follow our reading of the lease that we would have solid grounds to sue them for breach of contract, we decided to sign the amendment and remove the threat of eviction. If we had waited for the eviction notice, the church could easily have said that they actually intended to make the space substantially similar but we never gave them the opportunity and we almost certainly would have lost the case. Having signed this amendment under duress, we are clearly not happy with having to move, but we can live with it. By agreeing to the relocation, we have not only removed the threat of eviction from over our heads but have assured ourselves that we will not have to move until the middle of October at the earliest. This means that we can remain in our current space through back-to-school, the most important time of the year for us. If the build-out of the Bistro 503/Crossroads space is acceptable, we will then have to move and we will almost certainly suffer a difficult Christmas season because of the construction on the center that is certain to begin as soon as we have moved, assuming the church will get the necessary building permits. Taken altogether, then, this was the least costly decision we could have made financially, mentally and emotionally since the continual threat of eviction was extremely stressful and we stood to lose significant sales from the move no matter where we went. One unfortunate result of our being forced to sign this agreement, of course, is that Crossroads Tavern needs to be removed from the center and we sincerely regret that the church put us in the position of having to pull the trigger. Crossroads Tavern, along with Lafayette Music, is one of only a handful of locally owned businesses that have been in Lafayette for over 20 years. While we will not be leaving the center immediately, of course, the church has emphasized to us many times that they will not renew our lease – they do not want us in their center because we do not fit their image. At the same time, it is also disturbing that while there is other space in the center that the church could use for our relocation (there is over 10,000 square feet of space in the center that is currently unoccupied, not under lease, and not scheduled to be part of the office conversion), the church would rather take the Crossroads space, possibly forcing them out of business in the process, rather than use other empty space in the center to accommodate us. Oddly enough, Paul Brunner, at one time, in an article to the Daily Camera, (http://www.dailycamera.com/news/ci_28016879/lafayette-music-store-eyes-legal-battle-against-flatirons-megachurch) claimed that the church had made on offer to us to move into the former Thai Kitchen space which included one year’s free rent, a complete build-out of the space and moving expenses but we turned the offer down. Ironically, if the church really had made us that offer, we would have taken it. Unfortunately, the offer we actually did receive did not include a build-out and we would have had to leave the center entirely at our own expense after one year. In the process of waging this battle, then, it has become quite apparent that Flatirons Community Church has little regard for local businesses which have been part of the Lafayette community for decades. Instead, it appears, based on comments published in the Daily Camera, that they prefer to rent space that is not going to be used for their offices to chain restaurants that are not locally owned – this is the church’s concept of “revitalization.” A local music store that draws people from all over the state of Colorado obviously does not have much to offer Lafayette in their eyes. For now, then, since we have not yet moved and it will be October before we know whether Flatirons has made our new space “substantially similar”, our original petition remains just as relevant today as when we first submitted it – either let us remain where we are for the duration of our lease or pay us for the actual costs of leaving the center. There is still time to make the right decision.