John McGillion, who owns Lulu’s in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, wants to turn the establishment into a gay bar to reap the benefits of the neighborhood’s growing gay and lesbian community, but a stipulation in his lease forbids the opening of a gay bar on the premises, so McGillion is suing, the NY Post reports:
“I am barely scraping by on the proceeds of the bar . . . If I am permitted to operate a gay bar at the premises I believe that I will be able to make a considerable profit,” McGillion said in Brooklyn Supreme Court papers filed last week…
McGillion has withheld the rent for months and has been battling landlord Guard General Merchandise Corp. for more than a year over the issue, but says it won’t budge.
“I don’t know what their problem is. Who knows? I thought those days were gone,” he said of the lease. “I mean, who cares, today? Gays — everybody’s got their rights. What’s the big deal?”
…McGillion, who owns a handful of other bars in Brooklyn and Manhattan, believes he could have done another “40 to 50 percent” more business as a gay establishment.
McGillion is asking a judge to declare the clause in his contract forbidding him from going gay invalid.
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