The Houston Press is still figuring out all the details, but it appears things have come to a head over at Fitzgerald’s. The building’s now-former occupants have been evicted by their landlord, Sara Fitzgerald, which we have confirmed with multiple sources. Pictures now circulating on Facebook show the upstairs area has been completely trashed, as seen in the below screenshots. It looks bad, but luckily the damage is mostly cosmetic. Nevertheless, as someone close to the story told us earlier today, “these assholes fucked with the wrong scene.”
We’ll have more on this tomorrow. What a sad situation.
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This afternoon, Josh Merritt, who had been general manager of the club, posted the following message on Facebook:
Ok, I have been in a car most of the day, unable to respond to the nonsense that is circulating about Fitzgerald’s both on Facebook and in the local press. So, let’s clarify some things. First of all, neither I, nor my staff “destroyed” Fitzgerald’s. We began moving out of the building yesterday, which involved the PA being removed, lights, liquor, beer, etc. We had a private party last night in the building as we knew we would be leaving today. While we were getting our stuff out of the building, things got out of hand and said party decided to toilet paper wrap the upstairs like we all did in high school. We did not feel like cleaning it up last night and were going to do it this morning, however, our landlord stormed the building, breaking down the door and forced us out.
The picture and post going around was not made by my employee, but by a disgruntled ex-employee who used his Facebook account this morning that was still logged in on the office computer. She came in with the landlord and thought it would be “cute” to cause a bunch of headache. So, the picture circulating is of toilet paper and straws and empty card board boxes on the floor. Calling this “destruction” is laughable. If anything, the building was left in better shape than when we got it and we have plenty of pictures from this past Sept. to prove it. I am sure everyone remembers the state it was in during the final days of the previous tenants’ lease and everyone remembers WHY they left. We put in new AC compressors, AC ducts, new walls and electrical, new toilets, all of which are still in the building. We could have torn it all out since we paid to put it in, but we did not. We regret that this happened and that it has been blown way out of proportion by Facebook warriors, disgruntled ex-employees and the press, who love a juicy story.
The Press also talked to Sara Fitzgerald, who told us she hopes to get her liquor license reinstated and resume running the venue herself. The actual damage was relatively minor, mostly spray paint and toilet paper, she added.
Cory Garcia, Nathan Smith and Kristy Loye also contributed to this article.
This article appears in Feb 4-10, 2016.
