09/01/2024
For the last two years, our family has resided on this property. Before that, Alex was in the orchard bringing it back to life when Old Mother Hubert was in business. I say this, because this farm was not just our business, it was our home. Birthday parties, the birth of my twins, even my sons first loose tooth, this place has seen it all. We LOVED this farm! We loved the land, we loved the community, and we loved what it meant for our family to be here.
We had huge ambitions with this place. I can go on and on about all the amazing things we had planned for our future here, but I unfortunately now have to keep all of those ideas to myself. You see, for the past 6 months I have stayed quiet. Most of you have met Alex and I by this point, it's very easy to tell we are the non confrontational type. I have even gone as far as to stop our employees from posting on here out of anger. I was protecting the property I fell in love with, but I can't do this any more. For the past 6 months we have been bullied, harassed, and threatened. Our stuff has been claimed as someone else's, things have gone missing, and all of our hard work has been destroyed. They even filled in drainage ditches we dug for the fields. Why? Who knows. It's only hurting themselves and showing what we did here was not respected.
We closed the store over the winter. There is no insulation in that building and it is impossible to keep it warm even with space heaters going. How do you keep employee moral up when everyone needs to carry around hand warmers in their pockets? Our baker could see her breath STANDING NEXT TO THE OVENS. I truly do not know how to stress this enough, we could NOT continue to stay open. Lack of business in the slow season aside, this was just not going to work. The problem here is we were told we needed to stay open. You see, Wayne owns the property, but that's about it. However, him and his friends had a nasty habit of coming in and harassing our employees on the weekends. They would ask all types of invasive questions, shove past our manager to get into employee only spaces, and act like the place belonged to them. They would distract my employees and then proceed to yell at them for not doing their jobs in a timely fashion. If it was just the property owner, that would be one thing, but unfortunately it was not just him. There was one weekend where we had an event going on, the place was loaded with customers, and my manager was dealing with him and his friends. They forced their way in to our kitchen, with open toed shoes and improper clothing, all so they could take videos for social media. When I finally was able to get in to help with the situation, I was basically told to get over it. The one woman then turned her head and coughed right next to an entire rack of baked goods that were cooling. Those item's had to be tossed and rebaked during peak hours on an event weekend.
Something I was often told, was that we NEEDED to sell breakfast sandwhiches, but without a hood in the kitchen, the fire alarms would go off. Do you know what their solution to that was? "Just take the fire alarms down, you need to have breakfast sandwhiches" Excuse me? Needless to say, we did not do that. He also insisted we needed to put tables in, but both the town and fire inspector told us the building could not accommodate that. I was told they would get over it and that nothing would be done, but again, I was not going to do that. There were a few other things that he insisted we did, but that's not important. The point I'm trying to make here is that I owned the business, but if I was not willing to be a puppet, there would be repercussions. We were a FARM STORE, all we wanted to do was be a farm and support our community.
Once we closed to protect both our employees and our customers, after not doing things in our business that we did not want to do, we were told to get out. It did not matter that we had an active lease, it was over. I am going to share some of my expierences here on a personal level, but before I get in to all of that, this is what I am going to say; My community, the town that many of my friends and loved ones reside in, DESERVES to know what kind of person they will be supporting moving forward.
When they posted the property for sale, we found out the same way you guys did. Minisink Circle was where someone posted about it I believe? Can you imagine that? You not only run a business, but you call the place your home, and you're finding out its been posted for sale on a local town page, with everyone talking negative in the comments. I cried that night and then the next morning, you know what we did? We got our ducks in a row and we put in an offer. That offer was instantly denied. They refused to provide any of the paper work needed for the loans and then proceeded to say they were no longer selling. That's fine if we're being honest, this is the part where I tell you the roof leaks in multiple spots and there is a nasty mold and mildew issue through out the building in contained areas. On top of that, both the walk in and the freezer would constantly break down. We were spending endless amounts of money trying to get it working, something I now regret doing, and the amount of products we had to throw away due to these issues is abysmal.
He found a new puppet. I know that's mean to say, but it's true. The sad part however, is that the new business going in will have nothing to do with the land it sits on. The farm will go back to the overgrown, rotting landscape it once was. The trees have common issues found in many Orchards, but without the proper care and maintenance, they will not fare well. While we had the orchard ready for u-pick this season, that is no longer the case. YEARS of hard work, for nothing. It's incredibly disheartening to even think about, let alone speak on.
When the new people came in, the harassment started almost instantly. We were forced out of the store, but told we still had to continue to spray the trees because it was our obligation. There is a hallway separating the store area from the living area... guys, they barricaded the door! ONE OF OUR FIRE EXITS!! Without saying anything! In doing so, it completely blocked us from any garage door access and our fuse panel. From there they proceeded to attack our things outside. Farming equipment had to be rushed to another local farm to keep it safe, and we had to set up temporary security cameras all over. We had full access to all buildings, and then suddenly without so much as a warning, we did not. They locked the barn without telling us, effectively blocking my CHILDREN from all of their outdoor toys. Of course there were other items in there, but i'm speaking on what I find most important. My animals have not gotten away unbothered either. I have witnessed his men throwing rocks at my ducks and geese on multiple occasions as well as opening up cages and takings things out without asking. There was another instance where we had strapped down some tables to move, and I guess his men needed a strap, because they unstrapped our load without telling us. We only noticed as we were leaving the farm, imagine if Alex didn't have the habit of inspecting his trailers before hitting the main road? There was another time I had mentioned to Alex infront of their cameras (oops) that we should consider doing deer apples still. The next day, he had a team of men come pick the orchard clean of drop apples. Originally, they were planning to bag these apples up and put them in the kitchen refrigerators. If you know anything about food safety and salmonella posioning, you would know its a good thing Alex inquired about them before that was done. Those apples then proceeded to sit in bins on the loading dock rotting and collecting swarms of flies for two weeks before Alex dumped them himself. I can continue with stories of this nature, but I think you all are starting to understand the extent of what I have been dealing with and what kind of people they are. The lack of expierence is extremely concerning.
Today is Sunday, September 1st, 2024. At no point did we agree we would be fully moved out by this time, and under no legal obligation are we to leave yet. This morning I woke up to a truck on my lawn, pointed at my windows. Upon further inspection, the person inside sat up straight and made direct eye contact. When I took my dogs out for their morning walk, I believe I was being filmed. I recognized this man as one of the properties owner's men, so I ignored it and went about my business. Harassment is just a part of my daily routine at this point, but never as bad as it had gotten today. While the rest of my household was sleeping, they proceeded to slam on all of our doors periodically over the course of an hour. They circled the lot honking their horns and screaming all types of things. Alex received a nasty message, basically threatening us to leave today or else, and because of the hostility being shown, he chose to not respond. This went on for a few hours until men started walking around looking into my windows. My children were scared. My oldest is only 6 years old and woke up to people yelling and banging on our doors, think about that one for a second. This was when I first started writing this. This was my breaking point and this is no longer a family friendly farm, that's for sure. I tried to go on with my day, and as I was preparing to make my family lunch and continue packing, an entire team of tow trucks pulls in and starts hooking up to all of our vehicles. I can now officially say a 911 operator has calmed me down from a full blown panic attack. We're ok, everything is fine, OBVIOUSLY this was an extremely illegal attempt and the cops are on our side, but come on! While this was all going on the PROPERTY OWNER was yelling all types of profanities up to me simply because I was standing in the window with my children watching everything happen.
I am here to tell my story. I wanted so badly to just stay out of their way and move on from here as quickly and quietly as possible. I did not want it to come to this, but at this point it needs to be done. This is NOT a place you should want to support. This is no longer a farm. This is going to become just another deli on route 6 filled with produce being shipped in, it will not even be local. You will not be supporting a new small business, it is the SAME GUY behind the scenes. He has owned this property since BEFORE Old
Mother Hubert.
I am one of you. I shop at the same food stores and frequent the same restaurants you guys do. These people are not from this area, they will never be a part of this community. I hope in speaking up about this you can all be made aware and I can start to answer some questions I know ALOT of you have wanted to have answered. Please just bear with me, this is an extremely touchy subject and I am still actively in the hot seat. I predict this will continue to progress over the next week as we finish pulling the last of our things out, so consider this my first update. Thank you for taking the time to read, if you are still here that means you are one of our supporters and I will never be able to thank this community enough for everything they have done for us during our time here.
-Angie
