Also, and I know it isn't incredibly rare, but it stuck out to me, the store was owned by corporate before it was sold to the then-manager (who is now suing corporate) for $65k, despite saying that it costs upward of $200k to start a franchise. I couldn't make the numbers make sense, personally. Why would they sell a corporate store for 1/3 of the value?
In truth, the alleged $200k lego collection is meaningless. The real smoke is that the previous owners were strong armed out at random.
It honestly would just be franchise infighting if it werent for the fact that the ceo is explicitly running interference at every step
It seems like there is deep, deep fraud. The knee jerk reaction to run legal defense seems to me like they are hiding WAY worse
Wage theft is the most common crime in the world.
And whether $20/hr is a "living wage" depends entirely on your circumstances. If you're a solo adult you can probably swing it. If you have 3 kids you will probably be on food stamps. Should Amazon pay people with kids more? Or only hire single people with no dependents?
As such, this part of the new deal should be reverted as well "We are relaxing some of the safeguards of the anti-trust laws. The public must be protected against the abuses that led to their enactment, and to this end, we are putting in place of old principles of unchecked competition some new Government controls. They must, above all, be impartial and just. Their purpose is to free business, not to shackle it" since business has not held up their side of the new deal.
https://bricksandminifigs.com/blog/blog/2026/05/28/bricks-mi...
It seems like their franchisee went bust, and they bailed him out to some $ value. Taking over shit like his lease and probably some other debts.
200K is maybe what they need to recoup their losses from rescuing this store, and they have enough local LDS enforcers to make it stick.
Not what happened, according to a legal commentator: https://youtu.be/14ktgvoH4Mc?t=590
> The seizure. November 14th, 2024. The [original franchise owners Crystal Law Gorman and her husband Benjamin Gorman] approach B&M about selling the store. They have an overseas job offer, they want to recoup their investment before they leave.
> The same day --- same day -- corporate dispatches a representative to the Kaiser store. By B&M's account, the Gormans owed approximately $200,000 in unpaid royalties. The transition negotiations broke down and B&M terminated the franchise agreement under what McNeff described as a clause permitting offset of store assets similar to an asset seizure in a bankruptcy proceeding. By the Gormans' own account, they had approached corporate about selling, not closing. And B&M's response was a same-day forced removal? No notice, no inventory, and a single box of personal belongings?
> That same evening, Law Gorman says she informed the B&M representative on site who was on speaker phone with the corporate director of operations, Key McAllister, that there was an active consignment in the store, that Mancel had not been fully paid, and that the property remaining in the store was not the store's to sell. According to Law Gorman, McAllister responded that the new operator would be "taking over the consignment as well."
> This is a critical factual claim. McNeff has refused to address it on the record, citing pending litigation. McAllister has not responded to media requests at all. The Gormans say the store's security camera footage captured this exchange and that it has been provided to Kaiser police.
This reads like B&M corporate are hardball-playing morons, and they choose intimidation as their first action. They clearly didn't know or care about what a fuckup they just made in effectively seizing consigned goods while taking over the franchise, even though they were told about it. And they've relied on the stacked-deck of civil proceedings costs to get away with stealing a guy's property, while they taunt the guy and lie about their actions. And the police, instead of prosecuting them for what looks like a criminal offence, are helping them get rid of the annoying guy publicising B&M's malfeasance.
Think of it like a restaurant chain pursuing legal action against an internal theft ring at a single location.
(I am not taking the BAM side here, just providing a rationale for their actions).
> That said, after ownership of the Salem store changed, we thoroughly documented and assessed current inventory. A few days later, we became aware of the previous arrangement, and compared our inventory assessment to the limited documentation provided by the consignor. It was clear the full list of inventory in his documentation was not located in the store. What items could be reasonably identified as allegedly belonging to the consignor was offered back to the consignor, but that offer was refused.
> A deeper dive into the sales receipts uncovered that a significantly higher volume of the listed sets had sold over the course of the consignment deal prior to the store transition. The consignor also provided a written statement to a podcast that his collection was moved offsite for security reasons. Additional attempts to restore what we could with what was in our possession, was also declined, in writing.
As you suggest, maybe the reason is more complicated, e.g. some was sold, consignor not happy to have what's left returned and no compensation for what was sold, so refused to just have the smaller amount of stuff returned. If so that could have been much more clearly expressed in this letter. And again they could just post the correspondance.
