10/24/2021
I'm not looking to get back in to the industry but I still live around here and I'd like for the true story to be somewhere for my future contacts to read instead of just the speculations.
The eviction was indeed from not paying rent but it was intentionally not paid as a protest to my office lock being changed after a sewer backup flooded the suite from the floor drains(the lowest egress in the entire building) on a day I was away and I had gotten a ride home the night before(leaving my car there so I couldn't immediately get back to open the door for the landlord and plumber when I got the call the next day). I ended up taking city busses but arrived after everyone had left. From then on, the landlord consistently maintained that the lock was not changed, in fact saying that I had changed the lock which required them to have it picked by a locksmith(that I say changed the lock), but my keys no longer worked starting on that day and I repeatedly asked for the new key which they refused to supply(saying that I already had the key). By the time I felt defeated enough to give in and pay up, they had already begun the eviction process and refused my payment.
I didn't publicize that there had been a sewer backup because I didn't want the stigma("Poo Beer" was what I imagined). I didn't publicize the lock out because the roll up door was unlocked and could just be lifted up to gain entry any time I was away and I didn't want to get robbed. Once I realized that I was going to shut down completely, it just didn't seem worth the effort to publicly pander to the audience anymore so I ignored Ian's request for comment for the linked article. It still seems like the right choice for the time, though it would be nice now, to have already said it then.
Previous to the sewer backing up, the reported loss of contact with the investor had been, actually lacking and not lost, because my only employee abruptly quit at the end of her training period and I had two electrical projects going on at that time that were off site. The investor claimed that he was unable to reach me but the guy that served me with the lawsuit walked right up to me through the open rollup door one day while I was brewing. It was his first attempt to serve me, so I was clearly reachable, and surprised someone was saying that I wasn't... I had assembled some emails and prepared a statement with the intention of showing up in court but on the morning of, I read that all of my papers were supposed to have been filed prior to that date so my social anxiety disorder won over and I didn't show up. He had been asking for 4 times his investment and I'm grateful that the judge was fair and only had me pay the original investment plus fees. Had I shown up, I still would have owed him his investment back but maybe I wouldn't have had to pay the fees. That investor was eventually paid back in full after I re-entered the workforce(Final payment was two years after buy-in as specified in the original investor agreement). I do still owe others. This lawsuit was not a concern to me at the time as I felt to be within the original terms throughout and it had little to no bearing on the closure of the brewery. It was "public record" and I wasn't talking so it was reported as the probable cause for closure.
A "public record" Ian missed for this article that did have some bearing, was that divorce was filed against me earlier in the same week as the investor's lawsuit which, I think, sheds a new light on that time period. If you look back to my first ever interview with Brian when he was Sore Eye Sports, my wife was doing all of the paperwork and filings for the brewery and my job tasks were craft-only but she quietly dropped out early and I was left silently struggling with the increased workload. My first employee was hired to lighten my load but that didn't pan out either. The search for investors was partially trying to find financial help but mostly seeking operational help by having someone feel vested. I'm now amicably co-parenting with my ex-wife and we do not talk about the brewery.
Visually, the brewery was closed a lot during the very end of 2016 and beginning of 2017, but it was because my only employee had quit at the beginning of October and I was busy working on two other projects that I was under contract for, while also trying to save my marriage. However, those projects were completed and my focus was less distracted so Magnetic Brewing had been opening normally for several weeks prior to the sewer backing up. The tasting room was open for it's normal hours on 3/12/17, a Sunday, and it was the last day the tasting room was open. The sewer back-up happened on the morning of 3/15/17(Wednesday) which was the next day Magnetic Brewing was scheduled to open, but it was never open again.
Magnetic Brewing LLC is closed because the sewer backup on 3/15/2017 initiated a losing dispute over a door lock with the landlord that lead to the eviction.
One of San Diego's smallest breweries appears to be closed following an eviction notice and a $12,000 judgment from a recent lawsuit related to the brewery's attempt last year to sell 1 percent stakes of the company to new investors.
