PARMA — The lights are off and doors are locked at the American Commodore tuxedo store in Parma. All bad signs, sending bride-to-be Ashley Norfus into panic mode.
“Everything is still in there,” said Norfus. “I do not know what we are going to do with this dilemma.”
Her wedding is three weeks away, and her fiancé Michael and groomsmen may be left with nothing to wear.
“My fiancé is very upset,” said Norfus. “He's angry. We were rocking and ready to roll, and now this is an obstacle I was not waiting for.”
Groomsman Brandan Getz is also in trouble for an upcoming September wedding.
“I was surprised — I saw it online, and I said this can’t be true,” Getz said.
He's having to break the bad news to his buddy.
“I think he’s going to find a new place, but I don’t know, I don’t know, it’s up to him,” said Getz.
American Commodore Tuxedo also has locations all over Northeast Ohio, from North Olmsted to Cuyahoga Falls. Calls to these stores and corporate from concerned customers and News 5 are not being answered. The Greater Cleveland Better Business Bureau isn’t having luck, either.
“It's possible that these locations were franchised,” said Ericka Dilworth, Greater Cleveland Better Business Bureau Director of Operations. “It's really hard to know, without any direct information from the business to confirm, what is actually happening.”
The Better Business Bureau isn’t exactly sure what’s going on, whether the stores are closing for good or if they are just experiencing technical difficulties. A lot of the stores in the area have signs on their doors that say, “Unfortunately, our entire system is down. We apologize for any inconvenience.”
“Sometimes when a company knowingly takes deposits, and it goes out of business, then that can be problematic,” said Dilworth. “We're not saying that happened here. There are just so many unknowns as to, again, are they out of business? Will they be reopening? Are they going to reach out to consumers?”
Norfus said her 13 groomsmen have spent upwards of $2,600 in total for their tuxes. She wants answers from the company immediately.
“Please give us a reimbursement,” said Norfus. “Please give us an email. Please let us know what we should do moving forward because we’re impacted at the last minute.”
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