Jomahco owner has little good to say about Clinton

CLINTON — Jomahco Designs is moving and the owner has few good things to say about the town her business has resided in for the past three years.

Jomahco Designs, a kitchen, bathroom and custom closet design business, has been closed this week with a sign on the door announcing the business is relocating to Milbury. It's the second business this month that rents space from Oxford Court to announce it's leaving the downtown.

Owner Laura Devlin said after three years, she’s giving up on Clinton. She blames the neighborhood, Oxford Court and other High Street neighbors.

“The class of people that live in this area are not good,” Devlin said. “I see drug deals going on outside my window all the time.”

Devlin said she has no complaints about the rent she was paying to Oxford, but that it is scheduled to almost “double” on April 1. That, she said, would have been a problem.

Devlin had little good to say about Oxford management or the town in general.

Devlin wouldn’t specify the particulars of her problems with Oxford, saying only “there were problems that should have been addressed when the lease was signed — things they should have taken care of. The management of the building was not good.”
In addition to parking problems along High Street, Devlin said she believes some of the other businesses make it difficult for high-end shops to exist in the downtown.

“There are a lot of Brazilian storefronts that do quite well down there and having WHEAT down there is not helping either,” she said of the local charity, Wachusett Health Education Action Team.

WHEAT is scheduled to move into a storefront across from where Jomahco was located.

“It’s just going to make things worse,” Devlin said. “Who’s going to want to shop there?”

In addition to Jomahco, the Basket Beanery, a mainstay of caffeine, pastries and local gossip for the past 10 years on the corner of High and Church streets is closing by the end of the month.

Owner Fran Oyama announced last week the downtown coffee shop will close and Oyama will take a couple of months off and move her business of specialty food gift baskets and collector’s items online.

Oyama said she couldn’t comment on the reasons for the sudden closure. She also rents space from Oxford Courts, an apartment complex that owns about a dozen storefronts along High Street. Other owners say rent along the High Street stretch is going up.

“I’ve enjoyed doing this and there are a lot of people who will be sad to see it close and there will be a lot of people that we’ll miss, but we just can’t continue,” Oyama said.

Oyama said she is unsure when the last day will be but come April 1, the Beanery will be gone.

“I will be totally out of here on the last day of the month,” she said.

It was opened in the late ‘90s by Michael J. Kanala who sold the business to Oyama after running it for five years.

Oxford Court manager Tracie Perkins directed any inquiries to corporate headquarters, which had not returned a call from the Times & Courier when this story was posted.

(Noah R. Bombard can be reached at nbombard@cnc.com or at 978-365-8040)