Main Grain Homebrew shop mysteriously closed in Mandeville, LA

douglasbarbin said:

His phone number is definitely from the area. I think it's a Mandeville AT&T cell number. I'm just wondering how "legitimate" his sale is...

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This whole thread is about a guy who scammed his customers over the holidays by selling gift cards he had no intention to redeem.

Suddenly, someone makes a new account and immediately posts a thread offering to sell off the store's inventory for pennies on the dollar (suspicous). This person claims that he doesn't know the store owner, but decided to "take matters into [his] own hands" and investigate (suspicious story). Presumably during the course of the investigation, he entered into a business deal with the building owner to sell off the abandoned inventory (suspicious course of events).

Even if the story is true, it is doubtful that the building owner has a legal claim on the business assets. When a business is terminated, the assets must be liquidated and the proceeds divided up among the entities to whom the business owes money. If he takes ownership and sells them off without court approval, he may be inviting a host of legal problems.

The whole thing smells like a load of bull. If this guy isn't the store's owner, I would surmise that he is almost certainly his representative. This is quite possibly a way to get enough money to settle the tax bill without having to fess up to the crowd of people he scammed.

First off, VT-NAV is a little ridiculous...

Tho he may be correct about the legal ****.... i don't know, I am just a commercial pilot. lol

My # is Verizon, and I've lived in Mandeville for 24 years.


I do however believe the story about the gift cards since I have gotten a few emails about "RON owing for beer and wine kits"


The bottom line is this, I was just trying to help some fellow brewers out. THATS IT!
If you don't want it, thats fine, piss off..
Ive gotten a few phone calls and plan on working things out with those guys. Shortly I will start to put everything on ebay since doing it this way is not working..

& VT-NAV, I want my $5

Calm down, man. You should understand people being a little suspicious after everything that happened with Main Grain. That said, I will be emailing.

lowlvlflight said:

Shortly I will start to put everything on ebay since doing it this way is not working..[/SIZE][/B]

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So as an ordinary concerned citizen / homebrewer / helpful guy, you're going to be selling off the assets of a failed homebrew shop on ebay? A homebrewshop that, interestingly enough, owes lot of money to a lot of people.

What do you intend to do with the proceeds of your ebay auctions? Settle the shop's tax bill? Pay off the suppliers? Refund gift cards? Split up the money with the building owner?

Sorry, but a few indignant posts from a brand new account don't convince me that this isn't fishy.

Really, the decent thing to do would be to send an email to the local homebrew club offering to allow those with the bogus gift cards to come in and have first pick - but there isn't any money in that I suppose.

@lowlvlflight - I think VT-NAV brings up a lot of good points and I would really recommend you not get involved in selling off this guy's inventory for the myriad of legal reasons that VT-NAV mentioned. I think you're trying to help but you're really just getting involved in a mess, and by selling off his inventory you're making yourself a party to the gift card fraud. It's not worth it.

IMO, a sheriff sale should take place. The money collected would go to the tax collector, to suppliers and those with gift certs; anyone that went to small claims court to try to get their money back. If Blichmann provided the store with a lot of equipment, perhaps a claim was filed. From the looks of things, someone is selling off store stock for financial gain. With a sales pitch of helping fellow brewers. Basically, ripping off fellow brewers and suppliers that are owed money. Caveat emptor.

I agree with the 3 previous posts. lowlvlflight may be involving himself in the sale of items that don't belong to him nor the property owner.

FWIW, the phone number on the For Lease sign on the window is 985 285-1476

This entire thread on this forum is ridiculous...
He only reason I signed up was to let you guys know what I found out, because none of y'all could figure it out yourselves.

The only thing I had to gain from all of this, is to simply get the supplies that I needed locally. As far as the gift card **** goes, is no different then bad checks written! I'm sorry it is happened to you all and I'm sure it will get worked out in court..

I apologize for stepping on anyone's toes. And I will leave you all to do whatever the hell you want..

Which up to this point has been basically talking about the main grain and doing nothing. Just like the rest of America, everyone wants change no one wants to do a damn thing.. But talk about it

While I'm not sorry I did what I did to find the truth out about the "Main Drain" I am sorry that I tried to help you all and let y'all know my findings

this could be a great thread to read every morning as long as you guys keep it civil or they will lock this thread.
A tad off topic, I was doing a little searching and I came across this, http://www.topofthehopsbeerfest.com/biloxi/coast-cheers-for-beer.php

did not know it is against the law to brew beer in your home in Mississippi

PackerfaninSanDiego said:

did not know it is against the law to brew beer in your home in Mississippi

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it was legalized this year, along with Alabama.

it is now legal to homebrew in all 57 states. :fro:

lowlvlflight said:

Which up to this point has been basically talking about the main grain and doing nothing. Just like the rest of America, everyone wants change no one wants to do a damn thing.. But talk about it

While I'm not sorry I did what I did to find the truth out about the "Main Drain" I am sorry that I tried to help you all and let y'all know my findings

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You can play the whole "America" card if you want, but at the end of the day you're helping a failed business that is actively avoiding and dodging its creditors and customers to liquidate their assets. There's a big difference between finding out information and posting it here for people to read, and helping the owner sell off his inventory to avoid his creditors.

GrogNerd said:

it was legalized this year, along with Alabama.

it is now legal to homebrew in all 57 states. :fro:

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Yeah I just saw the article was from 2012, all 57 states?

PackerfaninSanDiego said:

Yeah I just saw the article was from 2012, all 57 states?

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snarky comment ridiculing Prezident Teleprompter's boast he campaigned in all 57 states

raouliii said:

I agree with the 3 previous posts. lowlvlflight may be involving himself in the sale of items that don't belong to him nor the property owner.

FWIW, the phone number on the For Lease sign on the window is 985 285-1476

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Guys, lowlvlflight is legit. I can vouch for him personally. Without going into too much detail, that phone number belongs to the property owner. Apparently, Ron hasn't been paying his lease and just vanished, leaving all of his stuff in there. I'm not a lawyer, but I believe that by this point, all property belongs to the building owner. He is trying to sell off what he can to cut his losses from unpaid lease. At any rate, this isn't a scam.

If the sheriff did come shut his business down for unpaid taxes, then I am surprised that they didn't seize all the property inside the business. I realize taking all the property at the time of seizure may have been cumbersome, but I would think they would have seized it nonetheless. Since he leased his retail space, one would think they would have removed all items from the shop, so that the building owner could at least move on and lease to another business. By not removing the product, they are cutting into the building owners profitability as well as any other taxable income from him.

I would also think that the courts would decide what to ultimately do with the inventory. My guess they would auction it off like they would any other tax sale. When I lived and worked in Illinois, we would have a real estate tax property sale in the late fall, and late spring a personal property tax auction (with stuff like cars, bikes, electronics, etc.) that came from people who, well didn't pay their taxes. They would probably group it all in one lot, or a small amount of lots, since it would be too much of a PITA to sell each individual bag of DME, etc.

My $0.02, is that without a court order, the building owner has no legal authority to sell the inventory.

douglasbarbin said:

Guys, lowlvlflight is legit. I can vouch for him personally. Without going into too much detail, that phone number belongs to the property owner. Apparently, Ron hasn't been paying his lease and just vanished, leaving all of his stuff in there. I'm not a lawyer, but I believe that by this point, all property belongs to the building owner. He is trying to sell off what he can to cut his losses from unpaid lease. At any rate, this isn't a scam.

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I'm not that familiar with the law there, and don't know any of the people involved in the situation. But I do know that when a seller is asked reasonable questions about the provenance of his goods and starts acting insulted, my antennae go up.

I may be erring on the side of caution, and maybe I've gotten a tad cynical over the years. But I wouldn't touch anything he's selling with a 10-foot pole....

douglasbarbin said:

Guys, lowlvlflight is legit. I can vouch for him personally. Without going into too much detail, that phone number belongs to the property owner. Apparently, Ron hasn't been paying his lease and just vanished, leaving all of his stuff in there. I'm not a lawyer, but I believe that by this point, all property belongs to the building owner. He is trying to sell off what he can to cut his losses from unpaid lease. At any rate, this isn't a scam.

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I'm no lawyer either and live far away from Mandeville, but regardless I have more sympathy for the people who bought or ended up with dud gift certificates than some sheriff or landlord. Leases and taxes are figments of society, which wouldn't exist without working people forking over their meager earnings en mass.

People putting their hard earned, after-tax cash on the table, up-front without receiving any tangible merchandise, and ending up with worthless pieces of paper (some may call those gift certificates), should get prevalence, not last dibs. Without them stores wouldn't exist, and neither would taxes and leases.

The Plan as of now is to Have a "Garage-Type sale" on a particular weekend.

A date has not been set in stone, But I can assure you I will let ya'll know.
If you skeptical about all of this, show up, and see for yourselves... i guess (bring some cash)

alot of yall have enquired about "brew pots" and I'm sry to say, but I think Ron ran of with all of them, there are alot of Bottles, caps, and tons of ingredients for making brew..

HV, bring an extra $5 with you, for me

I'm also not familiar with the location or parties. But if the Sheriff wanted the property held, he would have impounded it or padlocked the premise.
Good luck to all!

lowlvlflight pm me


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

So did the sale ever happen?