I used to love the Teavana store at the Albuquerque Uptown mall.
But this is not satire. This is not America. Via the NY Post:
An Indiana judge has taken an unusual step and temporarily barred Starbucks from closing 77 failing Teavana stores in Simon Property Group malls because the real estate giant was less able to handle the financial pain.
Starbucks said in July it planned to shutter its 379-store Teavana operation — but Simon rushed to court to block 77 stores in its malls from going dark — claiming such a move by a high-profile tenant could spark other stores in its malls to close.
Starbucks, after trying to turn around its stumbling tea chain, said last August it was pulling the plug on Teavana.
It wanted to close all the stores by the end of the year.
But Indianapolis-based Simon, in an environment where hundreds of stores across the country are closing, rushed to a local court to ask Judge Heather Welch to stop the store closing.
Welch, in a 55-page order, found that the very profitable Starbucks could absorb the financial hit — estimated by Starbucks to be $15 million over five months — better than Simon could. The mall operator did not provide an estimate of how much the closings of the Teavana stores would hurt them.
The case is being closely watched by retailers and landlords alike amid a retail meltdown that has resulted in a record number of bankruptcies this year.
The retail failures have left landlords scrambling to find new tenants and retailers in the difficult position of breaking their leases.