Home Care In Trumbauersville, PA

BUCKS COUNTY, PA — Officials continue to see encouraging signs that the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in Bucks County is waning.

Last week, 116 new infections were reported in Bucks County, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Health, a 90 percent drop from levels reported on May 1.

Meanwhile, new cases have registered in the single digits for three of the past five days.

Only 13 patients were hospitalized with the disease in Bucks County last week, and just four of them were on ventilators. It marks the fewest hospitalizations since early November.

So far, seven deaths have been attributed to COVID-19 in June.

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Bucks County health officials are continuing to push for higher vaccination rates here as the demand for shots continues to flatten and decline.

“Even though the overall hospitalization numbers are way down, the people who are still getting very sick are almost all unvaccinated,” said Dr. David Damsker, director of the Bucks County Health Department. “Anyone who is older, immunosuppressed, obese or otherwise at higher risk of disease, absolutely needs to get vaccinated. In those risk categories, there shouldn’t be a debate.”

The county and its vaccination contractor, AMI Expeditionary Healthcare, will hold five pop-up vaccination clinics this week at these locations:

Providers throughout Bucks County have administered a total of 589,666 doses of vaccine, enough to fully vaccinate 269,400 people and partially vaccinate 74,852.

Those numbers are equivalent to 49 percent of the 12-and-older population in Bucks County being fully vaccinated, and 65 percent having received at least one dose of vaccine.

About 43 percent of the total county population has been fully vaccinated, while 55 percent has received at least an initial dose.

The county’s test positivity rate, which exceeded 17 percent a few months ago, is now down to 1.1 percent.

Bucks County’s four mass vaccination sites remain open from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday through July 3, when sites at the Perkasie and Newtown campuses of Bucks County Community College will close. Clinics at Neshaminy Mall and the Warwick Square shopping center will continue to operate on a reduced schedule, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays, when the county reopens July 6 after the holiday weekend.

Shots are available at all sites without appointments required. All locations offer both the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine and the two-dose Pfizer vaccine.

To see an interactive map showing Bucks County’s COVID testing locations, please click here.

To see an interactive map showing Bucks County cases reported in the past 30 days, please click here.

Statistics, charts, links to state health department data and other coronavirus-related information can be found on the county’s data portal: https://covid19-bucksgis.hub.arcgis.com.

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The Bucks County distillery behind the popular Faber liquor line has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection as the co-founders engage in separate litigation alleging shareholder oppression and wrongful use of company resources to aid a spouse’s local business.

Midnight Madness Distilling LLC, which rebranded in 2018 under the name Theobald & Oppenheimer, has both assets and debt valued between $1,000,001 and $10 million, according to June 21 filings in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Located at 118 N. Main St. in Trumbauersville, the company produces its own liquor products and also provides co-op canning, bottling, packing and other services at its more than 160,000-square-foot warehouse.

Midnight Madness Distilling was founded in 2012. The concept was born out of a group business project by co-founders Anthony Lorubbio and Casey Parzych during an Intro to Entrepreneurship course at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh the preceding year. Holding nearly 47.2% total company interest but 4,550 (52.43%) Class A units, Parzych is the company’s majority shareholder, while Lorubbio holds almost 39.4% total company interest and 3,798 Class A units, per court documents.

A sale of the company's assets, including its Trumbauersville building, is in the works as part of the bankruptcy proceedings in a move that aims to retain the approximately 80 full-time and part-time jobs at the distillery as well as Midnight Madness' relationships with other businesses, said Harry Giacometti, a lawyer at Flaster Greenberg PC who is representing Midnight Madness. The distillery's products, such as Faber spirits, are used in bars throughout Philadelphia and carried in Pennsylvania Fine Wine & Good Spirits stores.

Inside the bankruptcy

The distillery is in default with its primary lender PNC Bank and “its business operations are losing money,” according to bankruptcy court documents.

PNC has multiple credit facilities outstanding to Midnight Madness including on the distillery’s mortgage, a line of credit, and equipment financing, Giacometti said. A default on one of the loans resulted in all of them being cross-defaulted and cross-collateralized, he added.

Bankruptcy filings indicate Midnight Madness is in debt to between 50 and 99 creditors. Of the top five, three are entities affiliated with PNC Bank for combined unsecured claims totaling upwards of $1.75 million.

The largest creditor is Polebridge, a limited liability company created in April 2019 that also lists 118 N. Main St. as its business address and appears linked to Faber’s sanitizer line, according to public records. That claim is for more than $4.73 million, and is noted as “contingent,” “unliquidated” and “disputed.” Also in the top five creditors is Mike Boyer of Wilmington, Delaware-based Spectre Distributing LLC, who is owed $525,000.

A motion has been filed to approve the sale of Midnight Madness' assets to a buyer that intends to come in and “operate it much the same way that it’s operated now,” including by keeping existing employees working and paying creditors in full, Giacometti said.

Without “outside investment” and continued support from the buyer and buyer affiliates (denoted as AgTech VI LLC, EtOH Worldwide LLC and XO Energy Worldwide LLP), Midnight Madness “will be unable to pay debt service and continue operations,” according to court documents.

Buyer affiliates “have made a substantial investment” in the distillery’s operations to keep it afloat. That includes leasing canning equipment to the company since February at a below market rate of 12 cents per can in a move that allowed Midnight Madness to generate about 60% of its current revenue, court documents state. The distillery owes more than $140,000 for those services to date, according to the filings.

“At this point, the debtor cannot survive without the buyer affiliates or another purchaser,” court documents note. “Absent consummation of the [Asset Purchase Agreement] and related transactions, the debtor will likely be liquidated, leaving the debtor’s secured lenders with far less than their portion of the purchase price, trade creditors with nothing and approximately 80 employees out of jobs in a small town.”

The buyer affiliates are “running out of patience” due to an “inability to reach a resolution outside of bankruptcy” with Midnight Madness’ secured lender and minority equity holder, the documents add.

A timetable is in place for putting the sale in motion in bankruptcy court, including a June 29 hearing that will allow the distillery to continue operating and using its assets while the sale is pending, Giacometti said. A July 14 hearing is scheduled to review the bidding process for a targeted August sale, he said. Midnight Madness has also hired Bensalem-based Comly Auctioneers & Appraisers to continue marketing its assets in case any other competitive bidders are interested.

The Covid-19 pandemic and associated product shortages played a role in the bankruptcy, Giacometti said. For Midnight Madness employees and companies doing business with the distillery, he emphasized that it’s anticipated the distillery’s operations will continue and jobs will be kept via the sale.

“That’s the whole reason to go through this process and get a new operator in there: to assume the assets and continue to operate the business as it has been,” Giacometti noted.

Lorubbio is no longer involved with Midnight Madness, according to Giacometti. It's anticipated that Parzych will stay on for a transition period following the sale but will otherwise no longer be involved with the company, he said.

Lawsuit alleges misuse of distillery resources

The bankruptcy proceedings come just over two months after a civil complaint was initiated on April 2 in the Court of Common Pleas of Bucks County by Lorubbio against Parzych alleging two counts: breach of contract and breach of fiduciary duty. The lawsuit seeks monetary damages in an amount to be determined by the court but exceeding $50,000.

In his complaint, Lorubbio asserts “minority shareholder suppression.” He states that Parzych funneled Midnight Madness funds and resources to his wife Ashleigh Baldwin’s business Good Design Inc., which manufactures CBD products including the popular beverage line cbdelight, to the detriment of Midnight Madness. Those resources include use of Midnight Madness’ sales team and the distillery’s manufacturing capabilities for Good Design products including cbdelight, which was originally trademarked by Midnight Madness, according to court documents.

Good Design Inc. registered as a fictitious name in February 2020, according to public records. It lists 118 N. Main St. as its business address and indicates it’s owned by Polebridge LLC, which is located at the same address and is the largest creditor listed in the Midnight Madness bankruptcy filing. Midnight Madness filed a trademark application for cbdelight in April 2019, per SEC filings.

Baldwin declined to comment for this story through an employee at the distillery.

According to Lorubbio’s complaint, Good Design Inc. is co-owned by Baldwin and Angus Rittenburg, described as Parzych’s “close friend” and roommate to both Parzych and Baldwin at the time of Good Design’s incorporation. Rittenburg also owns about 3.42% of Midnight Madness and holds 330 Class A Units, making Rittenburg the only other Class A Member owner of the distillery besides its co-founders, according to the bankruptcy filings, which Rittenburg signed alongside Parzych but without Lorubbio.

Good Design kept profits and did not adequately pay Midnight Madness for services rendered, Lorubbio alleges, and upon confronting Parzych, Lorubbio states that Parzych unilaterally and unlawfully stripped him of his CEO role in January 2020. The co-founders alone composed the company’s board of managers.

The lawsuit states Lorubbio was then frozen out of Midnight Madness’ operations and internal systems, that Parzych has gone on to further “devalue” the distillery and is seeking to sell the distillery to a third party without Lorubbio’s consent, thus violating the company’s operating agreement.

In his complaint, Lorubbio claims that as CEO he helped grow the distillery's sales from zero to almost $10 million from 2014 to 2019 with average growth of over 150% year over year.

In preliminary objections filed May 24 on behalf of Parzych, the co-founder asserts that Lorubbio was removed as CEO for causing Midnight Madness “to default on its outstanding debt.” Following the termination, Lorubbio “threw a tantrum” and “locked himself in an office” for hours, prompting employees to evacuate the building for their safety, according to Parzych’s objections.

Lorubbio then “fled the premises with a company car, computer, phone and confidential documents” after cutting a $10,130.23 check for himself as reimbursement for “unauthorized expenses,” per court documents. The company car was subsequently vandalized, according to Parzych's objections. Parzych’s legal team is also asking the Bucks County court to dismiss Lorubbio’s “breach of fiduciary duty” claim, saying it essentially duplicates his “breach of contract” allegations.

Lawyers representing Lorubbio and Parzych in the Bucks County civil case did not return requests for comment. Lorubbio declined to comment for this story. Parzych, through an employee at the distillery, also declined to comment.

Cheers, connoisseurs of specially liquors: the new owner of Trumbauersville-based Midnight Madness Distilling, crafters of the popular Faber Liquors line, intends on expanding operations, which include installing a grain-to-grass distillery and improving overall quality.

Millstone Spirits Group, the parent company of Philadelphia-based New Liberty Distillery, acquired Faber Distilling via bankruptcy auction with a $1.4 million winning bid. The acquisition gives Millstone ownership of the Faber line, a pair of high-speed bottling lines and the 160,000-square-foot production facility in Trumbauersville.

Midnight Madness Distillery operated under the name of Faber Distilling.

"The (cost) for us was a very good number for the value. How we value assets, intellectual property and the brand itself, we believe we received good value at the price," said Millstone Spirits Group President and Master Distiller Robert Cassell. "What we plan to do with Faber is improve on the operations to make it more professional and streamlined, and invest even more in local agriculture.

"Corn, barley and rye is easier to get (in Bucks County) and use there than it is to haul it into the city and then back out again."

Cassell said he has no plans to relocate from Trumbauersville, but instead has a 25-year longevity plan to remain in Bucks County.

"We are really hitting home to change the perception of this business," Cassell said. "This is how much the idea of wanting to stay here means: if I am building a place to store barrels of rum and whisky, I tell people to pick the oldest whiskey you like, and that's the time it will be sitting in the same location.

"If you like a four-year bourbon or a ten-year bourbon, that's the minimum time" those barrels while remain in storage on Main Street, Cassell added.

"So we are going to be here for a while, and that is why it is so important to engage the local community."

With this purchase, Faber will join New Line Distillery's lineup of boutique rum, whiskey and vodka.

Midnight Madness Distillery, the business founded by one-time partners Anthony Lorubbio and Casey Parzych, burst on the craft liquor scene in 2012. In 2016, Midnight Madness bought the old cigar-rolling building on North Main Street for $400,000.

The Lorubbio-Parzych partnership dissolved shortly thereafter, leading Lorubbio to sue Parzych for breach of operating agreement and for breach of fiduciary duty; Parzych removed Lorrubio as CEO in retaliation to that lawsuit, and their distillery wound up in bankruptcy court last year.

Cassell said the auction was held last summer, and the paperwork closed Dec. 30.

While this acquisition addresses the ownership of the Faber line itself, Cassell wanted to assure longtime fans that he intends on ramping up production of the revered liquor.

Cassell said that, based on the historical performance of Faber Distilling and changes implemented by new ownership, he projects the combined portfolios of New Liberty Distillery and Faber Distilling to be upwards of 100,000 nine-liter cases throughout the Mid-Atlantic region this year.

"Our number one priority is getting the entire Faber portfolio back in stock for our valued bar and restaurant owners," Cassell said. "In the next six months, we are looking to create more than 25 new roles and have already added 25 new hires to our staffing lineup since the acquisition.

"Right now, we are hiring in the roles of packaging, drivers, marketing, warehouse, sales, administration and bookkeeping."

After 30 years, a beloved Bucks County chocolate shop has closed.

Ann Hemyng Candy Inc.’s Chocolate Factory lost its lease. Under court order, the business left the building Feb. 28.

“We are not in business right now,” said owner Louise Spindler on Thursday. “We don’t know what the future holds.”

Ann Hemyng Candy Inc.’s Chocolate Factory began in 1984 in Lahaska and moved to Trumbauersville in 1989 when Spindler needed more space to make the products. In 1994, the company started taking orders on the Web.

Spindler has leased a retail space in the old, red brick building on Main Street in Trumbauersville. In 2002, the building was purchased by Francis “Chip” Stubbs.

For the last five years, the Chocolate Factory owner has been looking for another building to lease in Bucks and Lehigh counties without success. It’s been very difficult to find a space to accommodate the company’s chocolate-making operations, retail store and online sales, said Spindler.

The shop owner and her landlord were at odds. Stubbs has said he did not receive several months’ rent from the Chocolate Factory owners, except through court action. Spindler disputes that accusation.

Last year, Stubbs spray painted “Pay Rent or Quit” in bold, black letters on the building, according to Spindler.

In December, a Bucks County judge ordered the Chocolate Factory to leave the building by the end of February. The shop’s contents are in storage.

With the Easter holiday approaching, many of the Chocolate Factory’s customers are sad that a tradition of filling their family’s Easter baskets with the shop’s hand-dipped chocolates has come to an end.

“Our customers are very upset,” said Spindler.

At Trumbauersville Borough Council’s meeting Thursday night, Chip Stubbs’ wife, Carmen, approached the board seeking information as to how she could begin the process of opening her own shop in the former Chocolate Factory space.

Carmen Stubbs plans to open a gift shop, which would sell items such as jewelry and furniture handcrafted by artisans around the world.

“We would like to open as soon as you are ready to give us permission,” she told council.

Council President Ed Child informed her of the borough’s permitting process.

Prompted by Vice President Christopher Betz, the board voted unanimously to shut off water to the former Chocolate Factory building until its overdue water bill is paid in full. Council member Fred Potter was absent.

Amanda Cregan is a freelance writer. She can be reached through editor Harry Yanoshak: 215-345-3051 or [email protected].

He's among the cream of the crop of Pennsylvania's elementary school principals, but Adam Schmucker views the honor as anything but an individual accomplishment.

Schmucker, the principal at the Quakertown Community School District's Trumbauersville Elementary School, was recently named Pennsylvania's National Distinguished Principal by the National Association of Elementary School Principals.

"No principal can or should do anything in isolation," said Schmucker, 43, who is in his third year as Trumbauersville's top administrator.

"This is a recognition of our entire Trumbauersville school community," he continued. "It speaks to the overarching support of the district, the foundation established by the teachers, and the work and support of our community members and families."

School district Superintendent William Harner recommended Schmucker for the award, which was given to him by the NAESP in conjunction with the Pennsylvania Principals Association.

Schmucker's attention to detail of all aspects of Trumbauersville's operation and his drive to create an environment where all students can excel make him a "principal's principal," Harner said.

"He's a wonderful role model and mentor for other principals," the superintendent added.

Schmucker coaches other principals and places a high priority on staff development and collaboration among administrators and teachers, NAESP officials said.

Pennsylvania Principals Association President Beth Haldeman said she was impressed with Schmucker's work after she and other PPA and NAESP representatives recently visited Trumbauersville.

"It is evident that you have a vision of what successful schools should be and have instilled the philosophies of what exemplary principals do within our organization by empowering your staff to create an environment where students can excel," Haldeman wrote in a letter to Schmucker.

Officials from PPA and NAESP declined to say how many principals were considered for the award.

Schmucker was an assistant principal at Quakertown's Strayer Middle School for three years and principal at Neidig Elementary for four years before he transferred to Trumbauersville.

Early in his career, he was an elementary and middle school teacher for several years in Colorado before he moved back east and taught fifth grade at Barclay Elementary School in the Central Bucks School District for three years.

Schmucker grew up in York County and graduated from Dallastown High School in 1992. He now lives in Warwick with wife Jessica Whitelaw — an adjunct professor in the graduate school of education at the University of Pennsylvania — and their two children Claire, 15, and Emmett, 13.

Quick to spread the credit around when asked about the award, Schmucker said he sees his role as more of a facilitator than a boss.

"I try to leverage the strengths of everyone in the school community, and help them work together and focus on kids," he said. "I've tried to facilitate a mindset of always inquiring about why we're doing things, how we're doing them, how we're serving students and how we can do better. It's an applied and ongoing thing."