BAM’s own franchise business coach said the company bought out the lease and closed the store. The landlord’s office says no lease was ever signed.
Earlier today this site reported what BAM’s own West Coast franchise business coach told a store owner about Reckless Bricks in Tucson: “That was us. We bought out the lease, closed them down.” Tonight a very different account reached the public record, and it comes from the side that would have had to sign. By the owner’s account to Collecting Weekly, he was told from his landlord’s office that BAM has neither signed a lease nor started a takeover, and that he remains the tenant. A notice signed by him is on the door. It says the store is temporarily closed and is not going anywhere.
CONFIRMEDthat BAM’s West Coast franchise business coach gave that account of the closure to a store owner in her region, reported here earlier today. What is confirmed is that the statement was madeAS REPORTEDthe position TJ Roberts relayed to Collecting Weekly on Friday, September 18, from his landlord’s office: that no lease has been signed and no takeover initiated, and that he is still the tenantCONFIRMEDa notice signed by Roberts is posted on the store’s door, from a photograph of itUNRESOLVEDwhether BAM has taken any step at all on the lease. BAM has said nothing in public about this store since it opened
The notice on the door
The store at 8110 S Houghton Rd is closed this weekend. On its door is a notice to customers, signed by TJ Roberts as owner. It does not mention BAM, the letter or the lease. It says two things: the store is independently owned, and it is coming back.
We’re independently owned and operated, and this is our store and our space. Whatever you may have heard, we’re not going anywhere.
We’re temporarily closed while we take care of a few things behind the scenes, and we’ll be back open soon.
Thank you for all the support. It has meant everything, and we’ll see you again very soon.
What the landlord’s office says
Collecting Weekly published a follow-up on Friday evening walking back part of its own earlier reporting on the store. In it, Roberts is quoted on what he was told from his landlord’s office that day. The channel said it had confirmed the same with multiple sources by 8 p.m. Central, and that on the information it had, no lease had been bought out by BAM.
“She’s certain they have not signed a lease or initiated a takeover of the existing lease.”
“You are still the tenant and they’re going to have to prove to them that you did something wrong.”
“People rename businesses all the time.”
Asked directly whether the store was closing, Roberts told the channel the opposite. “I’m just giving you a heads up that is not true.” The channel reported the store is shut for the weekend for practical reasons, among them that the shelves had been emptied and everything has to go back.
What BAM’s franchise business coach told the other owners
Set that beside what a franchisee in BAM’s West Coast region was told by the company’s own franchise business coach, published here earlier today. The coach did not describe a dispute or a notice. She described a finished act, in the first person plural, and she was describing it to the other owners she supports.
“That was us. We bought out the lease, closed them down, and asked them to immediately vacate the building and to take all their product, fixtures, everything with them.”
Two accounts of the same week are now public. The franchisor’s own agent describes a completed purchase. The landlord’s office, through the tenant, describes a lease nobody has touched. Both cannot be right about the same week.
The deadline
Roberts told the channel that a letter from corporate set a deadline of 5 p.m. Friday, Tucson time, to be out, and that the store had been emptied in the days before it because BAM did not want the inventory. Put those together and a franchisee stripped his own shelves against a deadline set over a lease transfer that, on his landlord’s office’s account, never happened. The deadline passed on Friday. The tenancy, on that account, did not move.
Collecting Weekly also pointed at a provision it says lets BAM assume or buy out a franchisee’s lease, posted publicly by another creator, and said that about half a dozen owners it has spoken to have the same clause in their own leases. If that holds, the clause is a standard part of the arrangement rather than something written for this store. A clause that permits a step is not evidence that the step was taken.
What is actually settled
That BAM’s franchise business coach made the statement is confirmed. That his landlord’s office holds the position Roberts describes is his account of a conversation this site did not hear. That the store is dark this weekend, and that a notice signed by its owner is on the door, anyone can see. What stays open is whether BAM ever did the thing its own coach said it had already finished doing.
BAM has still said nothing in public about this store. It has been silent since the store opened, apart from removing it from its own locator overnight and what its marketing director told owners internally. On the record so far, the only account BAM has given of what happened to this store is the one its coach gave privately, to another owner in the region she supervises.
Later: a locksmith changed the locks on the Tucson store on Wednesday afternoon, two days after the landlord told the owner it was “between her legal team and BAM corporate now”, reported September 23.
Sources. The notice on the store’s door, from a photograph of it, reconstructed above. Collecting Weekly’s follow-up of September 18, 2026, for the position Roberts relayed from his landlord’s office, the 5 p.m. deadline, the emptying of the store and the channel’s own checks. On the coach: what BAM’s West Coast franchise business coach told a store owner. On BAM’s conduct since the store opened: the opening, what its marketing director told owners, the overnight delisting, four days of nothing and the store, still stocked, on Thursday. BAM did not respond before publication. Nothing here establishes that BAM acted unlawfully, and the disputes between the company and its franchisees remain unproven allegations. This site’s right of reply is open to everyone named here.