On Thursday, Feb. 2, Cleveland Curiosities announced the expansion of its current business after purchasing the building the oddities shop resides in. The sale will result in the closure of Manja, the bar next door, by Saturday, Feb. 11.
While Manja owner John McNeill says the news caught him off guard, he wishes Cleveland Curiosities the best and notes a flood of support and heartfelt goodbyes from the community.
“I could talk all day about good will,” he says. “I really understand that outpouring from people who are one, devastated — you know, because it's their place. Twenty five years, it's like your grade school’s gone all of a sudden for some people.”
The building’s new owners initially planned to hold off on an announcement but felt pushed to make a statement after the local community and social media users caught wind of the sale.
Much of the discourse began when user @AnimalsSmooch tweeted on Feb. 1: “can you believe these are the people kicking out a bar in my neighborhood, to replace it with a harry potter airbnb [sic],” alongside a photo of Cleveland Curiosities owners Hallie Wallace and husband Clement Kunkle.
The post has amassed 5.6 million views over the next week, with more than 8,500 likes and over 500 quote tweets as of Feb. 10.
Unaware of how the Harry Potter rumor began, Kunkle and Wallace took to the store’s official Facebook to say:
While we were hoping to make our expansion announcement in the coming weeks, due to multiple threats to our lives, business, and families we feel the need to do it today in order to clarify any misinformation and inflammatory rhetoric about what is going on.
The business owners went on to clarify some inaccuracies spreading online about them and the building’s sale:
First- Yes, we bought our building with the intention of expanding our growing small business into the adjoining storefront that we already share a door and basement with.
Secondly, we have no clue where this ridiculous rumor started, but no, WE ARE NOT TURNING THE APARTMENTS INTO A HARRY POTTER AIR BnB [sic]. We do not support TERFs, plus that would be a copyright waiting to happen.
“I wish everybody well, you know, there's just too much crap,” McNeill says. “I told [Cleveland Curiosities], ‘Hey, you're going to be in the public — you need thick skin. Let the internet trolls just blow off their steam.’”
As for Cleveland Curiosities’ plans with the space, Kunkle and Wallace claim in their Facebook post that two of the four tenant agreements in the building are being terminated “so that we can begin fixing the neglect this building has experienced.”
McNeill himself noted longtime challenges in the building maintenance, sharing that the previous owner faced family and health issues that might’ve made upkeep difficult.
According to Kunkle and Wallace, five of the building’s six apartments are in unrentable disrepair, making their renovation and availability a priority.
Furthermore, the Cleveland Curiosities crew see the expansion as an opportunity for both financial growth as well as a boon for the neighborhood, claiming they will utilize local contractors and small business for the repairs and remodels.
“We do acknowledge and lament the fact that Manja bartenders have suffered a loss,” Cleveland Curiosities shares in its Facebook post. “Our goal is not to “take jobs out of the community,” but to instead create opportunity for new jobs. … While we are being accused of intending to ‘destroy a community,’ we are instead simply trying to grow and expand the one our little small business has started.”