Dead Poet Books might be in jeopardy. According to owners Linda and Richard Piediscalzi, their landlords, Weingarten Realty, aren’t happy that the Piediscalzis can only pay a portion of their rent at the beginning of the month and the rest of the money later.
“Weingarten’s rep here is trying to work with us, but it’s the corporate headquarters [located in Houston] who are having the problem,” said Linda.
“I understand the bottom line, but whatever happened to compassion?”
So as it stands, there are three possible outcomes: First, that Weingarten will acquiesce and they’ll stay in their current building; second, that they’ll move into a smaller space courtesy of Weingarten; and third, that they’ll be forced to hightail it out of there completely.
It’s this last option that’s causing the Piediscalzis to be a little nervous, of course. Weingarten, who was also the landlord for the now defunct Albion Books on Desert Inn, reportedly didn’t give that store’s last owner much time to vacate the premises. The books that couldn’t be packed were thrown into a Dumpster by a cleanup crew.
Hopefully, this won’t be the case for Dead Poet, but if it is, the Piediscalzis surely have enough community support to help clean out their store and save their books before being kicked to the curb.
At press time, Dead Poet was still in its old hub on Rainbow and Charleston—and offering a 30-percent-off-everything sale.