09/11/2022
Well folks, it’s incredibly difficult to say that BräuHaus is no more.
Those of you who know us well will know the constant issues we’ve had with our landlord at 40 Flixton Road over the years. Well, things have very much come to a head and we have had some very serious issues to deal with this past week. Those who don’t know the full backstory, it’s long (as is this) but it’s coming at some point, it’s probably a blog post tbh.
The landlord has threatened to forfeit the lease (a legal term for repossessing the property) on numerous occasions over the last 2 1/2 years due to alleged breaches of contract which we have fought off with the help our legal team. This ultimately culminated in an attempt to forfeit the lease last week, which was unsuccessful.
Later that same evening whilst open and trading we received a visit from someone claiming to be the new tenant of the premises, who had rolled up with 4 other people in an attempt to intimidate us into handing over the keys to the building as per his demands of “doing it civilly, or his way”. Obviously we refused and advised him that his issue sat with the landlord, and not us. They managed to enter parts of the site not accessible to the public and went on to sabotage our comms network and steal a set of keys. We secured the building after Police attended and we heard nothing more until Monday night.
At around 9pm we received a screen recording of an instagram story of the same guy and 2 others in our premises whilst we were closed, claiming it as his own. They had broken in through the basement door. We immediately called the Police, they attended but they had gone by the time they arrived. Nothing appeared to have been taken, except for another key.
The following morning whilst waiting for Police forensics to arrive, he turned up again. A conversation was had, littered with threats of ‘i can easily find where you live’ and ‘people can go missing’ Police were called again, he was advised to move on or be in breach of the peace.
After conversations with our legal team, it was decided enough was enough.
Clearly the landlord has orchestrated this, but to what level, we cannot be certain. If he’s gone full on intimidation mode by proxy, then obviously that’s not going to play out well if we ultimately have to take this to the courts. If this new guy has taken it upon himself to target us, when his issue should be with the landlord, then he’s clearly very much misguided.
In all honesty, after 5 years of legal battles and literally tens of thousands of pounds spent in the process, we just don’t have the fight in us any longer and decided to remove all our belongings from the building.
The Assembly remains open and we will be amending the opening hours to mirror those of BräuHaus. We would love it if you could join us over there and lend your support, looks like we’re probably going to have a fair few legal bills to pay in the future.
Lastly, thank you sincerely for your custom over the years, we’ve enjoyed getting to know you, from rule of six indoors to outdoors only in torrential rain, we’ve made some great friends along the way. Yeah, It’s been emotional.
See you at [a] x
