Ailing Atlanta Doors and Windows Locks Up Stores
The retail stores of Atlanta Doors and Windows were locked Monday as the apparently financially troubled Orange County door and window manufacturing company prepared to seek the protection of U.S. Bankruptcy Court.
Ira Katz, lawyer for the San Juan Capistrano-based firm that has retail outlets in Orange and Laguna Hills, said the company planned today to file for protection from its creditors and reorganize operations under Chapter 11 of the Federal Bankruptcy Code.
“It is the intention of the company to continue operating and do the best it can within the limits of the bankruptcy law for its creditors,” Katz said.
Katz declined to give any more information about the company or its financial condition. County records show that the firm, which makes fashionable French doors and other expensive doors, has been doing business as Atlanta Doors and Windows since Feb. 1, 1987.
Among its founders was Keith Powell, a Laguna Hills resident who was formerly president of the Los Angeles-based Federated Group, the struggling home consumer electronics chain bought by Atari Corp in 1987 for $67 million.
Kathy Powell said Monday that her husband Keith is a financial partner in the door and window business. “We are definitely not going out of business,” she said.
Robert Edward Allen, president of the company, declined comment when reached at his El Toro home.
Meanwhile, customers of the company were distressed to find Monday that phones were disconnected or unanswered at various business locations of Atlanta Doors and no representative of the firm was around to answer questions.
“I’m a customer, and they have about $3,200 of my money as a deposit for doors and windows,” said Phil Bonesteele, a computer programmer for a software company in Costa Mesa.
Bonesteele said he was told that new windows would be installed at his Tustin home at 9 a.m. Monday morning. When no one arrived, he tried in vain to call the company. Bonesteele said he and his wife got worried and drove to the store in Laguna Hills, only to find that the door was locked and a sign said it was closed for inventory. Moreover, he said, there were six other anxious customers standing at the door.
“It looks like the company just vaporized overnight,” he said.
Besides the stores in Laguna Hills and Orange, the company had another outlet in the Mission Viejo Mall that it closed about six months ago, a mall spokesman said.
