General Video of New England Shuts Down

Adult distributor General Video of New England (GVNE) notified adult companies via fax last week that they were officially closing their doors today, June 30, after 35 years of operation. A poor economy was cited as the primary cause of the closure.

Ken Currier, president of GVNE, hopes to avoid bankruptcy proceedings requesting that his creditors voluntarily accept a reduction in debt. In the fax sent out last week, Currier wrote that he would return any unsold product to reduce his debt, which he believed would leave GVNE able to pay 40 percent of their current accounts payable.

“This would continue until all assets had been exhausted, save for money to hire a lawyer,” Currier wrote, noting that he expected all assets to be exhausted by September 1 of this year.

Creditors who accept Currier’s proposal will be paid their 40 percent once they issue GVNE a credit memo for the remaining 60 percent of the amount owed.

Currier suggests in the fax that the only other option creditors have is to contact their lawyers or a collection agency.

The distributor was once part of Reuben Sturman’s General Video, an adult distribution company that was spun off into numerous regional satellite companies operated independently by various individuals in the late 1980s. While at one point the regional General Video companies had an opt-in purchasing program, they now operate entirely independently of each other.

David Sturman, owner of General Video West, as well as production company Sin City, suggested the problem for GVNE wasn’t so much a poor economy as the fact that adult video isn’t as profitable or as easy as things were 20 years ago.

“They aren’t making the obscene profits that they used too without having to do any work,” Sturman said. “I feel sorry for the creditors, myself among them. It’s a god damn shame.”

The closure wasn’t exactly a surprise too many industry insiders including the national sales manager for Vivid Entertainment Group, Howard Levine, who isn’t owed any money by GVNE – because he stopped selling them product.

“I stopped selling to them two years ago, when they couldn’t pay their bills then,” Levine said.

GVNE was generally described as a mid-size distributor.

General Video Of New England can be reached at (781) 821-0470.