'Liberty' isn't free - but its for sale

Antiques shop owner soured on city

A business at Lakeport Square is up for sale, and the owner claims that the city is to blame for creating an unfeasible business environment in the area.

Sue Pertin of Canterbury is the owner of Liberty Antiques and Collectibles, located at 777 Union Ave. A banner hung in the window of the nautically-themed antique shop advertises the building and contents for sale for $225,000. When asked why she's putting the business on the market, Pertin said yesterday that it was due to "The lack of parking and loss of revenue last summer (2006)." The loss of revenue she referred to was due to a reconstruction of Union Ave which disrupted the traffic flow in Lakeport Square. "I lost my tail end," she said. The project, as originally proposed, would have eliminated the parking spaces along Union Ave. in that area, but most of the spaces were spared after Pertin and other business owners protested.

However, saving those spaces was not enough to make the antique shop profitable. The building, which was once a Woolworth's, does not have a parking lot of its own, and the only available nearby spaces are on-street parking. Pertin had offered her building to the city to be demolished and replaced with a parking lot, but the city didn't bite. The whole experience has Pertin soured on the city. "I don't need to do business in the city of Laconia anymore," she said.

Bob Luther, City Councilor from Ward 2, said he's aware of the barriers to commerce in Lakeport. When asked if Lakeport Square was a viable place to do business, he said, "I think we have to make it that way." It has for many years been a center of commerce, but it now is without parking. "We've kind of disenfranchised the merchants there." He noted there's also a nice little park in the area, Sanborn Park, which also doesn't have parking.

Luther said he thinks the City Council generally supports finding a sensible way to add parking to the area. However, he considers "eminent domain" to be an unacceptable means, so he's interested in finding a willing community partner who might sell his property to the city for the purpose of creating a municipal parking area. "I'm always ready to listen."

Pertin had offered her property to the town for such a purpose, but Luther said that particular property "wasn't viable" as a solution for the parking crunch. "Would you tear down the building that you're trying to get parking spaces for?"

Wanda Tibbetts owns a beauty parlor around the corner on Elm Street and is president of the Lakeport Community Association, and she said that parking is a problem for her, too. Her business has been there since 1970, and when the bridge on Elm Street over the Lakeport Dam was reconstructed, 20 parking spaces in front of her business's building was reduced to seven. Other businesses in her building include an Asian grocery, a tattoo parlor, and a convenience store,

"This has always been 'the wrong side of the tracks,'" Tibbetts said, giving her interpretation as to why Lakeport Square tends to be treated more as a thoroughfare between downtown Laconia and McIntyre Circle and the Weirs than as a shopping destination.

Some of Tibbetts's longtime regular customers are unable to walk long distances from the nearest available parking space, and to keep them as customers, Tibbetts said she picks them up, drives them to the parlor, and then drives them home afterward. She said she makes about eight shuttle runs per week for customers that can't manage the parking ordeal.