Chocolate Kiss-Off : Evicted Candy Makers Bow Out Today at Laguna

There will be an all-day party today in one of the cobblestone arcades of downtown Laguna Beach.

But the affair at the Chimney Corner Candy Store--purveyor of homemade chocolates and toffee since 1949--will be more bitter than sweet.

“We’re being evicted,” said Dawn Motto, 32, who, with her husband, Jerry Hruska, 42, has cooked candy since 1977 in the tiny, 12-square-foot shop in the 400 block of South Coast Highway.

The eviction process started July 5 with a 30-day notice given by the landlady, Josephine Macres of Santa Ana.

In a telephone interview, Macres offered no explanation for her decision. She said simply: “I didn’t renew the lease. Why do you ask? I just don’t want them there.”

Macres has, however, granted them several extensions since the first notice was given in July.

“This was so that we could fill all the orders for the Festival of Arts where the Boys’ Club has been selling our candies for the last six years, and this year at the Sawdust Festival, too,” Motto said.

But on Friday, the extensions ran out.

“It feels so strange,” Motto said, as she finished cooking a batch of fudge in a big copper kettle over a black caldron. The caldron was over the flames in a brick, chimneylike recess that gives the shop its name.

“Here I am, doing what I’ve been doing right here every day since 1977. And after Saturday we won’t be here anymore. It does feel funny,” she said.

Hruska, who said he began cooking candy with his mother in Billings, Mont. when he was a high school student, stood amid the clutter of their shop in his red “candy hat” with white stripes. He pointed to the model trains, a zeppelin and other toys that filled the cozy cubicle.

The walls of the shop are covered with enlarged printing of the names of visitors, many of them collected by the former owner, the late Harry Ross, who founded the store in 1949 in what is now called Macres Lane. One of the names is that of a visitor from Wales in the British Isles.

“It must be the longest name in the world,” Hruska laughed.

It is spelled Llanfairpullguryngyllgogeryohuryrndrodullllantysiliogogogoch.

Then there is a ledger with a mailing list containing hundreds of names from all parts of the United States, the Far East and Europe.

And, since word of the impending eviction got out last summer, the scores of letters that have flooded in from regular customers are a testament to the shop’s popularity.

From a Berkeley man: “A terrible injustice. . . . You make the best chocolate in California.”

From Redlands: “We cannot imagine Laguna Beach without the Chimney Corner Candy Store.”

From Santa Barbara: “Laguna should nurture its past. Quantity IS NOT quality!”

From Los Angeles: “Your chocolate turtles are one of the highlights of every trip I’ve made to Laguna. . . . I am outraged. . . .”

From Sacramento: “We were truly shocked. . . . I firmly believe that your fudge is the best in the world. . . .”

And from Nova Scotia: “Having sampled good chocolate in Quebec, Toronto, British Columbia, New Orleans, San Francisco and London, I know your candy is world-class.”

Motto and Hruska are not sure what the future holds for them and their daughter, Nancy Anne, 6.

“If we can find a little kitchen, one that meets Health Department standards, we hope we can build up a mail order business and maybe a little wholesale business,” Hruska said. “But right now, I don’t know if we can ever have anything like this place, where the kids come in and the tourists and visitors from everywhere.”

Have they gotten permission to throw Saturday’s party in Macres Lane?

“No,” Motto said, “and we didn’t ask for permission when we got married right here in the lane in 1979.”