public wine storage gone bad.

1.   As you know Hurricane Sandy was devastating to the Jersey shore and much of NYC, including many Chelsea Art galleries.  Also in the neighborhood of Chelsea was WineCare Storage on W. 28th Street which hasn't opened its doors since the hurricane.  The people who store wine there are not too happy about this and litigation is in full swing. 

This is the first part of the story about a customer who couldn't access his wine.  Feel free to scroll down and read the comments.
This article covers part two. 
This is the 'blog' established for the customers to work together to screw the now bankrupt storage facility. 

I was not in Glendale when the Northridge quake occurred and don't know how The Cave performed. (If anyone knows I'd love to hear it.)  But I will take this moment to clarify The Cave's liability in event of a catastrophic occurrence, or even a little teeny-weeny one.  It's in your lease. 

"Insurance and Risk of Loss.  The Cave assumes no liability whatsoever for any loss or damage regardless of the cause thereof to the goods of Lessee stored in the locker.  Lessee acknowledges that the goods are stored at the Lessee’s sole risk of loss or damage to Lessee’s wine, and that said insurance will be Lessee’s sole recourse for any loss incurred or experienced while said wine is stored at The Cave."

  

It's a standard self-storage lease, and it's about as clear as it gets.  When anyone new comes to the Cave I specifically review this paragraph with them so they clearly understand the onus of risk is on them.  To insure or not to insure is your option alone. 

  

About all this I will only comment that I'm leery these guys in NY would collect and store so much valuable wine in one facility ignorant to the scope of their own responsibility. 

UPDATE. N Y Times, July 21, 2013.

2.
I've already stated, public record, that if I'm down here during the next big one and get trapped, somewhere between day three and death you're wine is going down, baby!  But not until then, I promise.

I recently needed to make a mess of things and didn't want to do that during business hours, so Tuesday saw me down here for about eight hours to work on a project.

A troglodyte in its Cave minus open doors and human intervention is very satisfying.  It's different, wandering the caverns of this subterranean bit of history; I'm never not aware of this vault I tread.  Also I'm convinced the Moselle Room is haunted.

Since The Cave was closed and I was the only one here, I could very easily spend the necessary time to break into a locker and help myself to someone else's product.  Before you panic, let's take a closer look at how dumb this moment was.

•  I've been here five years and this is the first time this occurred to me.  Already a little slow on the uptake, you might agree.
• I was working on a walk-in locker at the time and was already surrounded by lots of nice wine, I'm pretty sure...
• ...which leads us to: I'm so completely dumb about wine I have no idea what's good and what's not.  I don't even know what to steal!

However.

It did make me realize the TRUST one must have in public wine storage and, ultimately, in me. That's not too stressful. 

A day after this someone told me about this guy in Orange County who worked at Legend Cellars Wine Storage.  Very OC.  This knucklehead broke into lockers, swapped the good stuff for 2-Buck-Chuck (now $2.49) and then sold the good stuff at auction.  What a maroon! 

• Lastly, selling it never occurred to me, I'd just drink it. I have too much wine already.  I don't need more wine, so.....why bother?

The Cave is well-wired and alarmed against break in. Also, jeez, if I screw up this job I'm going to have to go to this place for a job.  Can you imagine this troglodyte there?  Yikes.