A Popular Car Repair Shop Faces Eviction in Round 2 of . . . : Jerry vs. His Landlord
Jerry’s car repair shop sits on the corner of Santa Monica Boulevard and Selby Avenue in Westwood, a reminder to its neighbors of a time before big office buildings and trendy boutiques started swallowing up small workaday businesses like Jerry McCormac’s.
“He’s a neighborhood merchant who stayed,” said Westwood resident Ron Fields, an interior designer. “It’s not just a place for my car, but a place I can stop in and talk. He’s a reminder we have a neighborhood.”
Westwood residents cared enough about McCormac, who has been in business 26 years, that they rallied to save the shop two years ago when Weyerhaeuser Mortgage Co. planned an office project along several blocks of Santa Monica Boulevard that included McCormac’s old spot on the corner of Westholme Avenue. The company agreed to relocate the shop during construction, and to incorporate McCormac’s business into the finished complex.
But now McCormac’s shop is threatened again, because Weyerhaeuser is trying to evict him. Monday, McCormac will go to court to answer company charges that he Failed to pay rent, sign a new lease and agree to relocate to an underground site when construction is finished.
“They’re trying to get rid of me,” McCormac said from the temporary quarters four blocks west of the construction site, where Weyerhaeuser moved him in April. McCormac admits that he was late paying rent. But he said that his checks were returned and that the other issues are “pure harassment.”
“I suspect they never intended to perform under the . . . agreement,” Chip Chasalow, a Holmby-Westwood Property Owners Assn. board member, said of Weyerhaeuser. His group was among those that worked to get the agreement that saved McCormac’s business two years ago. “I believe we were snookered.”
Michael J. Carroll, an attorney with Latham & Watkins, a law firm representing Weyerhaeuser against McCormac, disputed this, saying: “It’s not like we’re trying to boot him out for no reason.” Carroll said the outstanding issues are not monetary, though he noted the company is paying about $9,000 a month to set McCormac up in his temporary location. Under the agreement worked out by the community groups, the company cannot increase McCormac’s rent, which is about $4,000 a month. Carroll called McCormac “uncooperative” about settling the dispute.
McCormac said that before the eviction proceedings, Weyerhaeuser offered him money to leave but he turned it down. “I didn’t want to leave this area, and with costs now, it wasn’t enough” to reestablish himself locally, he said. Weyerhaeuser Vice President James C. Smith would only say “discussions” had been held on the topic.
“It’s like they offered him a little money and when he didn’t accept, they took a very tough stance,” Chasalow said.
To supporters like Chasalow, McCormac, 47, is a treasured local character who acts like a middle-aged “Fonz,” the character on TV’s “Happy Days.” McCormac walks through his shop with the loping stride of a teen-ager, has a shock of wavy white hair, maintains a perpetual tan and always sports sunglasses. McCormac keeps the top of his shirt unbuttoned, showing off the gold necklace on his chest.
Locals smile at McCormac’s version of “cool” but prize his warmth and generosity. Chasalow remembers the time McCormac shut down so local children could run a carwash to raise money. Fields likes the idea of someone knowing him well enough to wave when he drives by.
Fields is also upset that even if the eviction attempt fails, the company would put McCormac underground. “You wouldn’t be able to see him,” he said. “It’s typical corporate Big Brother.”
McCormac said that before the move to the temporary shop, it was hard to stay open because the company dug holes and left mounds of dirt so high “you could only see the roof of my station from the street. A lot of people thought I’d gone.”
McCormac said that he is broke but that community residents have assisted him with legal help and rent on the shop and an apartment.
“It was and continues to be our position that we must preserve small businesses in the community,” Chasalow said of the Holmby-Westwood Property Owners Assn.
Though the Westwood Homeowners’ Assn. has not taken a position on McCormac’s business, president Joyce Foster said preserving small merchants is an ongoing concern.
