Is Ypsi Twp. Targeting a “Black-Owned Business,” or Protecting the Township From a Dangerous Public Nuisance?

by P.D. Lesko

At the Aug. 24 hearing on the matter of Ypsilanti Twp. vs. Ardis Lewis, Jr., Men Like Us and Lily Investments, Inc. before the Honorable Timothy P. Connors in the Washtenaw County Trial Court, the podium was crowded. The attorney representing Ypsilanti Twp. was there, as was the attorney representing Lilly Investments, Inc., the owner of the building named in the Township’s lawsuit filed July 28, 2023. Men Like Us CEO Ardis Lewis, Jr. was represented by an attorney, as well. At the 20-minute hearing, the landlord’s attorney informed Judge Connors that on Aug. 16 Lily Investments, Inc. had sent Ardis Lewis, Jr. a Demand Letter for $80,307.70 in unpaid rent, and was initiating eviction proceedings. In response, Judge Connors extended the ex parte restraining order against Men Like Us which was put into place on Aug. 1. The judge then set the next hearing date for Sept. 22, 2023.

Lewis’s attorney asked the judge to push back the next hearing to Oct., but Judge Connors said no. He did not want to put off a closer examination of the facts of the case for that long. The judge said he has been charged with moving through a backlog of Trial Court cases.

At the Aug. 24 Trial Court hearing, Ardis Lewis, Jr. was angry and agitated. At the end of the short hearing, Lewis, his lawyer and eight women who said they were there to “support” Lewis, sat in the hallway outside the courtroom. Lewis and his supporters were upset and vocal, including about media coverage of Lewis’s legal entanglements. As Lewis and his supporters complained about what they asserted was inaccurate reporting, Lewis’s attorney repeatedly told both Lewis and his supporters to “stop talking.”

“Stop talking. You’re making it worse,” Lewis’s attorney told his client several times, as Lewis complained to his supporters in the hallway after the hearing.

Around 14 women showed up after the hearing to support Ardis Lewis, Jr., who faces a demand for over $80,000 in back rent from his landlord, eviction from the landlord’s building at 3011 E. Michigan Ave., and a public nuisance lawsuit filed by Ypsilanti Twp. That suit was triggered by the illegal sale of liquor and illegal gambling at the Men Like Us club, as well as over 30 police reports of assaults, attempted murder, alleged sexual assault, shootings, and disturbing the peace at the 3011 E. Michigan Ave. address since Lewis rented the building in Feb. 2021.

One of Lewis’s female supporters seated in the hallway said there were 50 people coming to pack Judge Connors’s small courtroom. Outside the entrance to judge’s courtroom sat three armed Washtenaw County deputies. Inside the courtroom, another three armed deputies lined the wall near the podium.

When told the hearing had been put off until Sept. 22, the women seemed confused and upset.

One woman said, in response to the legal proceedings against Ardis Lewis, Jr., “This will never pass,” as if the Trial Court judge would take a vote on the matter before issuing his decision.

Township Targeting a Black-Owned Business?

At the Aug. 15, 2023 meeting of the Ypsilanti Board of Trustees, Men Like Us CEO Ardis Lewis, Jr. and others claimed in public comments that Ypsilanti Twp. Trustees are pushing Lewis out of the building he owns at 3011 E. Michigan Ave.

The Trustees, Lewis said in public comments, were targeting a Black-owned business in a city with only a handful of Black-owned businesses. His “supporters,” who spoke at the Township Trustees’ meeting, echoed Lewis’s assertions.

The facts, however, do not support Ardis Lewis, Jr.’s claims, or the claims of his supporters.

• Records show that Ardis Lewis, Jr. has leased the building at 3011 E. Michigan Ave. since Feb. 2021. He doesn’t own it.
• Records show over the past 30 months Ardis Lewis, Jr.’s men’s club has been the subject of 30 police reports, many of which are related to gun violence, weapons possession, and assaults.
• Records show Lewis’s landlord, Lily Investments, Inc. (owned by Nicholas F. Talmers) alleges Lewis owes $80,307.70 in unpaid rent.

The lease between Lily Investments, Inc. (Nicholas Talmers) and Ardis Lewis, Jr. DBA Men Like Us began in Feb. 2021 with two months free rent. By the end of 2021, the monthly rent was $2,250. By the end of 2022, the monthly rent rose to $3,500.

When asked why he didn’t move to enforce the terms of the lease earlier, Talmers told Ypsilanti Twp. officials that he’d been assured by Ardis Lewis, Jr. that “the money for the back rent was coming from Washtenaw County in the form of some kind of grant.”

In fact, in early-2022 around the same time that a non-profit co-founded by a murderer on parole and a registered sex offender applied to receive $1.2 million in ARPA grant funding from Washtenaw County for a host of activities that the group was unqualified to carry out, Ardis Lewis, Jr. applied for a $70,000 ARPA fund grant to “deter youth violence.” He did not get the grant.

At the time of the application, Lewis’s “men’s club” Men Like Us had been the site of multiple shootings, assaults, an attempted murder and an alleged sexual assault. 

In Feb. 2023, Lewis spoke at a rally against gun violence paid for with public money. He attributed gun violence to single-parent households led by women, and rap music.

Landlord Sues Tenant Who Owes Rent and Violated His Lease

The Ypsilanti Twp. lawsuit against Lily Investments, Inc. and Ardis Lewis, Jr. asks Judge Connors to padlock Talmers’s building for one year. The Township’s lawsuit also seeks reasonable attorneys fees.

Lewis’s rental lease has a clause that requires Lewis and Men Like Us to comply with “all lawful laws, regulations and ordinances.” The lease also states that, “Tenant will not occupy the leased premises” in such a way that constitutes a “public or private nuisance.”

At the Aug. 24 hearing, after the judge was informed Ardis Lewis, Jr. owes over $80,000 in unpaid rent, Lewis’s attorney told Judge Connors that Ardis Lewis, Jr. is “leasing with an option to buy.” Lewis’s attorney offered Judge Connors no explanation about how leasing to own would explain years of unpaid rent.

A copy of the lease between Lily Investments, Inc. and Ardis Lewis, Jr. was provided to The Ann Arbor Independent. The lease has no mention of “leasing with an option to buy.”

The lease between Lily Investments, Inc. and Ardis Lewis, Jr. includes a broad Personal Guaranty clause. Not only did Ardis Lewis, Jr. personally guarantee all of the rent, he also agreed to personally reimburse Nicholas F. Talmers for “any and all costs including reasonable attorney’s fees incurred by the Landlord in the enforcement of the terms and conditions of the Lease against Tenant, or the enforcement of this Personal Guaranty against the undersigned.”

Public records show that in 2019, Lily Investments, Inc. inked a deal with the Michigan Dept. of Corrections to rent the building at 3011 E. Michigan Ave. as office space. The monthly rent was to be $10,551,42. The deal included two five-year renewals with rent to rise to $11,434.75 and then $12,097.25 at the time of the second five-year renewal. In Nov. 2020, Nicholas Talmers applied for a building permit for his construction company Cranbrook Contractual SVS LLC “to provide new office space for the state of michigan department of corrections. Those individuals required by law to check in at this office with their parole officer would use this office facility. The construction is essentially a complete interior building out.”

Public records also show the building permit was denied by Ypsilanti Township officials.

The $1.4 million deal with the State of Michigan was cancelled. Then, in Feb. 2021, Ardis Lewis, Jr. rented the space.

Ardis Lewis, Jr. will next appear in 15th District Court before the Honorable Erane Washington. Judge Washington will oversee the eviction proceedings initiated by Lily Investments, Inc.

Ypsilanti Twp. officials say that even if Ardis Lewis, Jr. pays the $80,307.70 in rent owed to his landlord, Nicholas Talmers has said he will continue eviction proceedings.

Given Ardis Lewis, Jr.’s years-long record of being sued for non-payment of monies owed to a variety of plaintiffs, including fleeing the state to evade paying child support, it seems unlikely Talmers will collect the past due rent and attorney’s fees from Lewis after Men Like Us is evicted from the 3011 E. Michigan Ave.

Men Like Us Community Outreach is a non-profit given 509(a)2 status by the IRS on May 11, 2022. Lewis’s non-profit will not be dissolved by the Ypsilanti Twp. lawsuit, or eviction proceedings. Ardis Lewis, Jr. is free to rent or purchase another space for his “men’s club” anywhere in the United States.