American Craft Beer The Best Craft Beer, Breweries, Bars, Brewpubs, Beer Stores, And Restaurants Serving Serious Beer.
(Sun sets on Stone Napa – Courtesy Stone Brewing)
Stone Brewing’s beautifully-renovated Napa taproom and brewery, housed in a building that dates back to 1877, has closed after a California Superior Court judge gave its landlord the power to evict the business due to unpaid rent.
The eviction ruling, which was based on the brewer failing to make rent payments throughout the pandemic, resulted in job loss for almost 40 employees.
According to the Drinks Business, West Pueblo Partners, the property’s landlord “moved to evict Stone Brewing back in the spring claiming that the brewery owed, at the time, approximately $211,000 in unpaid rent dating back to November 2020.”
Stone Brewing had contested that a provision in its lease protected the brewery from events outside of its control (read: the pandemic) and filed the lawsuit in response, however the judge sided with the landlord, leading to the eviction of the nation’s ninth largest craft brewery.
Stone Brewing confirmed its circumstances via social media…
“We permanently closed our Napa location as a result of our landlord’s unwillingness to work with us during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Despite multiple attempts to come to an amicable resolution with our landlord, our time as a tenant in this building has come to an end.”
“We negotiated for broad protections in our lease in the situation that an unforeseeable event delayed or interrupted our ability to operate our business. And when the pandemic hit and shut down Stone Brewing – Napa for much of the past year and a half, we tried to no avail to work with our landlord to share the burden of the pandemic.” the brewery said in a statement…
“We are disheartened by their decision to end our 20 year lease simply because we exercised our right to defer payments during some of the hardest months of the pandemic. So we took our disagreement to court, and bewilderingly – considering the law and our very clear rights under the lease – the judge sided against us in a decision that will threaten protections for commercial tenants when the next pandemic or wildfire comes.”
“If our lease did not provide protection during the pandemic, then no lease, no matter how broad, will protect a restaurant, bar or shop owner from eviction,” the brewery warned.
Stone is hoping to relocate some team members to Southern California and said it will do all it can to support those it leaves behind, including providing severance and benefits coverage.
