Landlord Wants To Stop Tenant From Opening Gay Bar
The Brooklyn, NY bar owner says he’s barely getting by, and needs to rework is business to stay afloat. To do so, he wants refashion his place into a gay bar. But his landlord is trying to stop him.
John McGillion says he wants to transform Lulu’s to take advantage of a growing gay and lesbian community in the neighborhood.
But there’s just one problem: his lease specifically prohibits McGillion from running a gay bar.
“I am barely scraping by on the proceeds of the bar . . . If I am permitted to operate a gay bar at the premises I believe that I will be able to make a considerable profit,” McGillion said in Brooklyn Supreme Court papers filed last week…Fed up, he tried to sell the business on three or four occasions, but the deals fell through when the landlord, identified in public records as Janet Berger of Manhasset, tried to triple the rent for the prospective buyers, he claims.
…with just 10 months left on the lease, McGillion is asking a judge to declare the controversial clause invalid, and to instead extend the deal by two or three years
The landlord declined to comment on the litigation.
