Big City Bikes Legal Dispute Over Awning

Always sad to hear of a local bike shop struggling to stay open. It sounds like this legal dispute may have cost the owner too much money to afford to keep going. 

DNAinfo article:

LINCOLN PARK — Even though customers have embraced Big City Bikes, the bike repair and maintenance shop might be forced to close after only six months of business, according to its owner.

Saurabh Patel, who owns the bike shop on the ground level of a condo building at 2425 N. Ashland Ave., is tangled in a lawsuit filed by his upstairs neighbors over Patel's decision to remove the shop's awnings — a dispute that might cost him the business he loves.

"We're about to shut down," said Patel, who has spent $7,000 in legal fees so far.

"If we're going to fail, I'd like to fail on our own. If it wasn't for this [lawsuit], we would be thriving. We can't succeed buried in legal debt," he added.

In November, the Wrightwood Park Terraces Condominium Association filed a lawsuit against Patel, arguing that the removal of the awnings "modified the aesthetic quality of the Association's premises," making the building look "uneven and incongruous," according to court documents.

Full article:

https://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20160129/lincoln-park/bike-city-bik...

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Permalink Reply by mike w. on February 7, 2016 at 11:57am

Building associations are inherently stupid. So they'll drive a viable business out and lose the revenue of  the rental space over a pissing contest  over aesthetics. i hope if they succeed in chloroforming the shop that the space stays vacant for years.

Imbeciles.

Permalink Reply by Yasmeen on February 7, 2016 at 12:44pm

I'm going to have to disagree with you about the "less snobby". There are really great bike shops in Chicago that aren't snobby. I think we are pretty lucky to have so many options. 

With regards to the bike shop that's going out of business, I do feel pretty sad about this happening for the same reasons Mike expressed. Sad that a legitimate business man is getting run out of business over something so petty. Sad they didn't seem to bother to try to work with him and find a compromise to help keep him in business because to Mike's point, many of those retail spaces connected with condos end up vacant for long periods of time. 

Permalink Reply by Sean Newby on February 7, 2016 at 1:28pm
Ridiculous.
I don't suppose the condo association is going to step up with the permitting fees and penalties for these canopies, are they? More likely they'll pass the expense on to the business owners.

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