business is business.

i thought id write a little bit about what really happened to my salon, since some people think they can talk shit, and spread lies.

i stole this salon. straight up. this fuck who owns another salon on Lab property was running it, or rather running it into the ground. he was gracious enough to let me work here from time to time, and i tried to convince him to let me take it over. he would still be the top dog, but i would change the way it was run, from a rental salon full of mean old ladies, so the "hip", fun salon it became. he strung me along for a few months until i went behind his back, to the property manager, and convinced her to let me take it. they agreed.
the landlord wanted to put in a clause that said that they could pull the lease for any reason after 90 days. i said the only way i would agree to that is if i had the same clause, in cause i wanted to bounce. he said i could have it too, but i would have to pay like a $24,000 dollar deposit. i didnt have that. i expressed my concern about having the clause in there, and the property manager said "as long as youre doing what you need to be doing, it wont happen"
i didnt have that kind of money, so i signed.
the question people always had when they heard i opened a salon was "how the fuck did Jav do that?", like utter disbelief that an asshole like me could get keys to a building. well, the way i did it was that the salon was already here. i paid first, last deposit. thats about it. i didnt have to do much building/renovating. the stations were here. i basically just took over a building. so the startup was minimal. i never OWNED the building, the Lab did.
im not going to pretend that business was booming. it was really hard to start. we opened with a bare crew. i think people came in thinking it was going to be a booming business, and a few werent ready or willing to put in the work it takes to make a new business flourish. paying rent on a 2100 square foot building in the "nice" or "hip" part of costa mesa was not an easy feat. but i did it. yeah, i was late on rent once. i know of OTHER salons owned by the Lab that are/were/have been upwards of $30,000 behind on rent. but, i wont talk anymore shit about THAT crew right now.
in december, my reserves of money ran out. the salon was struggling at this point. ill be real. we were running on a staff of about 6 or 7 full time, and had a couple part time here and there. the salon had 12 stations. so we never got a full team.
on december 13th, Lenixx was born.
on december 14th, i got a text from the property manager asking if i had rent for december. at this point, i had paid rent up to then. i was not months and months behind on rent like some people have said. i told her that i did not have rent at that point. she informed me that the landlord had decided, or was considering giving the building to someone else. one of the happiest times in my life was just marred by some incredibly heartbreaking news. but at this point, no other paperwork had been signed by anyone else.
a week or so later, the property manager told me that the people who were going to take over the building wanted to come in and take some measurements. i said that wasnt a good idea, as i wasnt in the salon that day and i hadnt told my staff what was going on because it wasnt a sure thing yet.
about an hour later, i got a text saying that some guys were there to take measurements. 4 or 5 guys busted in and told my staff that "jav and (property manager) said it was cool if we came in". why the fuck would i say it was cool?
turns out it was the same jackass who was friends with one of the stylists at my salon, who had come in a few weeks before, asking to look around, and pulled out a video camera.
anyway, this is how the staff found out that something was up. by the guy who was ATTEMPTING to take the salon over showing up. i guess he announced that he had signed a lease and he could do whatever he wanted, which was absolutely not true. i was planning on telling the staff AFTER the new tenant had signed a lease. pulling everyone together and breaking it down. instead, he came in and announced it to everyone himself basically.
the person who is taking the salon over work(s) at a salon on the other side of costa mesa, and i know a couple people that work there. me being me, i told them about it, and when confronted he denied everything. he didnt want anyone at his current salon knowing his plans. it got back to me that he said that the reason he got the salon was because i hadnt paid rent for over three months. im sure he was told that by the leasing agent of the Lab, who was probably upset because he didnt get the commission on leasing the building to me because i had gone straight to the property manager.

in the wake of losing the salon, i kind of shut down emotionally towards it. i didnt jump up and try to get money together for a new salon. i felt defeated. i DID talk to a couple people about putting capital towards a new spot, but between the fact that i had just lost one, and the fact that nobody else really has money right now, it just didnt work. so i didnt push it. just dealing with the fact that THOUSANDS and THOUSANDS of dollars were just GONE, never to be gotten back... i didnt know what to do.
i suppose i cant be MAD about losing the salon. it was literally taken from me EXACTLY how i took it from someone else. business is business. i keep telling myself that over and over. i cant take it personally.

so where do i go from here? i move forward. i find somewhere else to work. i try to make money. i cut hair. its what i do.
the hardest part, for me, is accepting the fact that i will NEVER find a place like that again. a building with an office, and a studio, and everything else. a place i could ride my bike inside, ride my bike around the neighborhood and see my friends who also have businesses on the block. a place i could record music at 8am. a place i could come in any time i wanted and do anything i wanted. anywhere else i go from here, will be someone else's, with their rules. i thought for sure i would never have to do that again. but here i am.