A property located on Dauphin Island Parkway, adjacent to Gilliard Elementary School, has been sold to O’Mar Inc. — a company whose owner already controls four other ABC store leases — and will likely become the site of that area’s newest ABC store, according to the Alabama Department of Finance.

According to the Mobile County Revenue Commissioner’s Web site, O’Mar Inc. acquired the property at 2852 Dauphin Island Parkway on July 31 of this year, just a few weeks after Lagniappe first reported the story of Michael “Moose” Mallini, a former ABC store landlord in the same area who had lost the lease at his DIP location, because of what he maintains was the inner workings of good ol’ boy politics.

The ABC shut down Mallini’s store roughly four months ago at the end of July despite not yet having a contract signed for the new store or having a new lease signed.

The lease on the 2852 address is still listed as “pending” on the Alabama Department of Finance Web site despite a seemingly contradictory detail offered a little farther down the page, stating “Lease Expires: 7/31/2024.” ABC officials could not provide a solid answer as to the status of the lease, but one employee told Lagniappe she hadn’t heard anything, “which means it’s probably still in the works.”

Todd Stacy a press secretary for Gov. Bob Riley said he would look into the status of the address when Lagniappe contacted him, but after a series of follow-up calls, Stacy has not reported back. The governor must give approval for the lease, but Stacy has been unable to verify whether that has happened.

The same Alabama Department of Finance Web site had Harrison listed as the landlord of four other stores in and around Mobile when Lagniappe first reported this story. Harrison also owns an ABC lease under a business called M&E Inc.

Between O’Mar Inc. and M&E Inc., Harrison would control the leases of five stores in and around Mobile — the most in the area — if the lease has been confirmed by Gov. Riley.

The property at 2852 Dauphin Island Parkway was transferred from 2003 Realty to O’Mar Inc, according to revenue commission records. 2003 Realty is the real-estate branch of RPM Pizza, one of the largest Dominos Pizza Franchises in the country.

Mallini’s property now sits vacant at 2669 Dauphin Island Parkway, but was leased to the ABC for 20 years. He says, when it came time to renegotiate his lease with the ABC, which is a state-owned agency and cannot, by law, own the properties it operates from, he took what he thought to be a fair average from all the other similarly sized ABC stores in Mobile County and added onto the price a little because of insurance hikes due to Hurricane Katrina.

The original lease Mallini held with the ABC was $7 per square foot and the renegotiated lease he proposed was $11.72. The hike would have increased rent from $2,300 a month to $3,906 a month at his 4,000 square foot facility.

When Lagniappe first told Mallini’s story, he said he was not alone and referred us to another former ABC landlord in Citronelle, Tom Rowell.

Rowell had leased a building to the ABC for roughly 40 years, toward the end of which his lease terms were reduced to a month-by-month basis. When Rowell raised the rent by $100 a month, he said the ABC didn’t’ bother acknowledging the increase. Finally he said, when it came time to re-bid the lease, as he always thought he’d have the chance to do, he was simply informed another company would be taking over the area in a new location. That company was LL&T, according to Rowell.

“I never got an opportunity to bid. We were always told we would, but we didn’t get the chance. The news just came from attorneys,” Rowell said.

LL&T is another Harrison-owned company and, according to the Mobile Country Revenue Commission, LL&T purchased land at the intersection of Spring Hill Avenue and Interstate 65 from a company called Folmar & Associates in 2003. ABC Administrator Emory Folmar and his late brother James Folmar are listed as once owning the land together before deeding it over to Folmar & Associates, which then sold the properly it to LL&T.

According to the Mobile County Revenue Commission, the fair market value of the properties sitting on the plot of land sold to Harrison now stands at a combined $1,727,900. The Alabama Career Center System building, which Harrison’s LL&T rents to the state for $11,376 per month according to state records, now sits on that site.

The lease for the ABC store that replaced Rowell’s is also listed as currently pending with its landlord, M&E Inc., according to the Alabama Department of Finance Web site.

When Lagniappe originally reported on the stories of Mallini and Rowell, Folmar intensely refuted their claims saying he hadn’t had anything to do with Folmar & Associates in over nine years and didn’t know Lamar Harrison.

Folmar also explained, rather colorfully, the ABC’s side of the story.

“Ain’t but one of them that’s been closed and that’s because the owner of the store acted a-horse’s rear end about his price. I told him we were in a recession and I could not give him an increase in the thing and he told me to take it or leave it, so I chose to leave it. End of story!” Folmar said. “Doesn’t make any difference who his store is going to. His store is closed because he got greedy as hell and you can quote me all day on that!”

Lost revenue from Mallini’s store — based on 2006 records from the Alabama Examiner of Public Accounts — can be estimated at $98,000 a month for a current total of $392,000 that will continue growing until a new store is opened.

Folmar seemed to have no qualms about the potential for lost revenue on DIP when Lagniappe questioned him just before shutting Mallini’s store down in July.

“Well I’ll get a store on Dauphin Island Parkway. I’ve got a deal working right now! Look, you’re not the damned FBI, what is the point of your question?” Folmar said. “We’ve got another location. You are not the FBI, get to your point! Whatever time he tells us to leave we will not have one right there. We have several on Dauphin Island Parkway. We just won’t have one right there. About two months, we’ll have a new store and then we’ll be back in business.”