Storey's Christmas trees ends 20 years at Northgate
This month, Elliot Storey will know whether he can keep his garden-center business afloat without access to a key Christmas tree lot that his family has used for 20 years.
For the first time in two decades, Storey’s Garden Center is not selling Christmas trees at Lib’s Ice Cream Center at the Northgate Shopping Plaza in the North Deering neighborhood. Just weeks before the Christmas tree season, he explains, the lot owner informed him that rent was jumping from $2,000 to $8,000 for the season.
"As a small business owner, I can’t afford that," Storey said.
Storey’s continues selling Christmas trees and wreaths at its headquarters on Route 302 in Westbrook. New locations include lots on Riverside Street near Friendly’s, at the Jetport Plaza by Staple’s in South Portland, and at Maine Oxy, three miles north of the Auburn exit in Auburn, throughout December.
But Storey estimated that 65 to 75 percent of his Christmas season business occurred at the Lib's Ice Cream Center lot.
"That lot is the sure thing," Storey said in a Dec. 1 interview from the headquarters site on Route 302. "This lot is not enough to make it through to where we start making money again."
The backstory to the end of a tradition reads more like a bare-knuckles business saga rather than a warm-and-fuzzy holiday tale.
Storey said his father, the founder of Storey’s Garden Center, the late Lloyd Storey, first started selling trees on the Lib's lot in the mid-1980s.
"We've been renting there for over 20 years; the reason that people know to get their Christmas decorations there is because of us," he said.
But this year, after discussions with the lot owner at Lib’s, Brenda Palowski, Storey, 25, said he simply could not afford a 400 percent increase in rent. Efforts to reach the landlord for comment on the situation were not successful, and a representative of the current retailer of Christmas trees at the site said Palowski preferred not to comment.
Storey said his father, Lloyd Storey, started landscaping in the 1960s. When Storey's Garden Center became established, Lib's grew into a reliable venue for selling Christmas trees.
"We did 2,600 trees last year, and 1,500 of those were at Lib's," Storey said.
Storey pointed to a falling out with former business partners as a factor in the rent hike.
"Suddenly, and without warning, very conspicuously, rent went up 400 percent. It happened to coincide with the departure of two partners here," he said.
Jeff Gallant and Rick O'Donnell, described as erstwhile family friends, were partners with Storey following his father's death in 2007. Storey decided to sever the business relationship, and contends that bad blood resulted.
"There were a lot of reasons we shouldn't have been in business together, in May, I said, 'It's not working out, it's my family
business, I'd like to move forward.' We weren't able to come to a good agreement about how that should be done," Storey said.
As negotiations failed, Storey said he paid off business debt and started a new company. Storey's Garden Center is the new company, and he's the sole proprietor. The partners were left without a cash settlement they had hoped to secure, he said.
"I don't believe in coincidences. The owner, Brenda's son, is good buddies with one of the partners, and he's in tight with the employer of the other partner," Storey said.
A supplier tipped him off that he was being undercut, Storey said.
One of the former partners denied that he had anything to do with the rent increase.
When contacted about the allegations, O'Donnell, one of the former partners, said, "I'm not involved with it at all. I had nothing to do with it. I'm not involved with tree sales."
Gallant did not respond to a request for comment.
Storey said he is sharing this story because he wants buyers to beware.
"They're there selling trees, trying to exist by taking customers they don't deserve," he said.
"I just want people to know that they're trying to prey on the ignorance of the customers, not knowing it isn't us anymore, and I
just want people who want to deal with us, and what to expect, the quality and the service, where they can go to get the product that they've come to appreciate and expect," Storey said.
Meanwhile, Storey admitted that December will be a make-or-break month for his family business.
"We hope that our loyal customers will understand, and visit us at our other locations instead," he said.
