High-end boutique’s customers are feeling ripped-off by owners
MONTANA AVENUE A high-end home decor boutique that was once a favorite place to shop for Oprah Winfrey is being investigated by the City Attorney’s Office for failing to provide customers with merchandise they paid for before the store went out of business.
Room with a View, formerly located along a trendy stretch of Montana Avenue, went out of business in May and has since failed to respond to letters and phone calls from the City Attorney’s Office, which is trying to locate the owners to see if they plan to follow through with orders made or provide refunds.
“We really don’t have much more information to release at this time because it is an active investigation, but we are reaching out to (the media) to see if there are more people who will come forward,” said Paula Rockenstein, an attorney with City Hall’s Consumer Protection Unit.
“We’ve had a few complaints. We believe there are more people out there,” Rockenstein said. “No formal charges have been filed. What happens next all depends on what response we get from consumers. That will determine if we handle this ourselves or go to a bigger agency.”
Rockenstein is urging any customers who may have ordered something from the store to contact the City Attorney’s Office.
The owners of Room with a View, Elizabeth Lamont and Tom Alesio, could not be reached for comment. Phone numbers for the boutique are no longer in service.
On the boutique’s Web site, the owners left a message for their customers, which reads: “To Our Dear Customers, Room with a View has closed its doors after 17 years. We thank you for your patronage all these years, as we felt very much a part of this community. Hopefully we will reopen in the near future with an eco-friendly focus, and will let all of you know when and where that happens. Please know that we had many laughs and fun and will miss seeing many of you on a regular basis. Again, thank you for your support.
Sincerely, Elizabeth, Tom and all of the staff of Room with a View.”
The store was featured on “Oprah” in 2004 as part of Winfrey’s “favorite things” series. Winfrey purchased a hand-painted, Vietri water garden tea set made of white clay from the Veneto region in northern Italy, according to the show’s Web site.
Jane Walker of the Montana Avenue Merchants Association and manager of Three Bags Full, which specializes in women’s sweaters, said several people who shopped at Room with a View have come to her seeking answers. She has been telling them to hire an attorney or contact City Hall.
Customers aren’t the only ones who have been left hanging. Dave Oh at Nick’s Dry Cleaners at Montana and Ninth Street said Alesio owes him roughly $6,000 for dry cleaning.
“I’ve hired somebody to try to find him,” Oh said Monday. “I believe he’s living in the Pacific Palisades, but he may have moved somewhere … The last six months (they were open) he didn’t pay his tab. I’m really disappointed because he was a good customer.”
Oh believes he isn’t the only one to get stiffed. “I heard there were some supply companies that haven’t gotten paid either,” he said.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on October 2, 2007. Read the original PDF.