Our Jeweler on the Lam

Our Old JewlerWhen I pro­posed to Pam, I had already got­ten a ring at Alpha Omega Jew­el­ers in Cam­bridge. It was a small shop in Har­vard Square, fam­ily run, with not spec­tac­u­larly high or low prices. In the years since then, we used them for not only our wed­ding rings, but other bits of jewelry.

So, I was not with­out a fair amount of shock when I read this head­line on the web site boston.com:
Alpha Omega liq­ui­da­tion sale set to start tomorrow

What was even more shock­ing was why they were liq­ui­dat­ing our old fam­ily jeweler:

The invest­ment con­sor­tium that bought the assets of Alpha Omega Jew­el­ers in a bank­ruptcy court-approved sale said that the liq­ui­da­tion sale of the chain’s inven­tory will begin at its four stores tomorrow.

Every­thing must be sold before Ross-Simons, a Rhode Island-based chain, assumes the leases of Alpha Omega stores at Nat­ick Col­lec­tion and the Pru­den­tial Cen­ter in Boston, and items will be dis­counted to ensure fast sales, the con­sor­tium said.

The chain’s other two stores are located in Har­vard Square and at the Burling­ton Mall.

Accord­ing to sto­ries in the Globe data base, Alpha Omega Jew­el­ers filed for pro­tec­tion under Chap­ter 11 of the US Bank­ruptcy Code last month. The fil­ing came after owner Raman Handa unex­pect­edly left the coun­try with his wife, son, and daugh­ter, prompt­ing the company’s bank to seize Alpha Omega assets and tem­porar­ily close its stores just before Christmas.

That’s right, they were going bank­rupt because the owner fled the coun­try with his fam­ily. Sud­denly my mind filled with all the plots of Jewel heists, with the thieves head­ing for Mex­ico, hav­ing deposited some of their mis­be­got­ten wealth in a Swiss Bank Account…

And to think I was served by Mr. or Mrs. Handa (I never learned their names, nor do I remem­ber them par­tic­u­larly well), who might have been plan­ning their dis­ap­pear­ances for years!

Or per­haps it was some­thing less glam­orous and far more depress­ing, like mount­ing debts and “a threat to him­self or a mem­ber of his family”.

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By David Drucker | Filed in Boston, Family | February 6, 2008 8:06 pm

3 Comments to “Our Jeweler on the Lam”

  1. AvatarJan Karlsbjerg
    Posted: Feb 7th, 2008 at 4:32 am
    1

    Just glad you didn’t have any­thing of yours at the store when they went on the lam.
  2. AvatarAnne
    Posted: Feb 10th, 2008 at 9:54 pm
    2

    Going on the lam didn’t lead to bank­ruptcy; they went bank­rupt because the Han­das over­spent to expand their busi­ness, and couldn’t make up for it in sales. They mortaged their house sev­eral times over to pay for every­thing, and owed every pub­li­ca­tion in town money for ads by mid-June 2007. It’s a very straight­for­ward and sad story. No threats, just an over­abun­dance of opti­mism and some really poor forecasting.
  3. Avatarddrucker
    Posted: Feb 11th, 2008 at 9:42 am
    3
    Author Comment

    Thanks, Anne. Too bad Han­das screwed up so badly. It’s a cau­tion­ary tale about plan­ning and what can hap­pen if you don’t take into account the worst scenarios.

    I’ll miss the place. Yet another thing that has gone since I lived in Cam­bridge (along with Wordsworth books in Har­vard Square and Goe­man Noo­dles at One Kendall Square — actu­ally, there were at least 2 restau­rants after Goe­man in that par­tic­u­lar space, and who knows how many there have been since)
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