Landlords sue No Fear

The Los Angeles Times reported this morning that several landlords are suing No Fear for not paying its rent.

The newspaper said the Irvine Spectrum, The Block at Orange, and shopping centers in Arcadia, West Covina and Valencia have filed separate suits.

An attorney for No Fear cited the difficult economy for the trouble.

I asked Michael Pratt, EVP of Corporate Development, for comment on the story this morning, and asked him if No Fear would close stores. Here’s what he had to say:

“I read the article and it is no secret that we are experiencing difficulties as a result of the challenging economy. As mentioned in the article, we opened a number of locations in a different leasing environment and we are working with all of our landlords to bring our rents in line with the current economic reality of our stores,” he said.

“In certain cases, our landlords have taken legal action as part of normal course and in all cases we have settled those actions. We have not been evicted from any location and we currently have no plans to close locations other than in the normal course of business.”

Michael previously spoke to Shop-eat-surf about the company’s retail strategy.