{"id":51072,"date":"2020-10-10T01:10:11","date_gmt":"2020-10-10T07:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/lara-spinu-journey-from-moldova-to-durango-leads-her-to-open-consignment-shop\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:54:43","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:54:43","slug":"lara-spinu-journey-from-moldova-to-durango-leads-her-to-open-consignment-shop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/lara-spinu-journey-from-moldova-to-durango-leads-her-to-open-consignment-shop\/","title":{"rendered":"Lara Spinu journey from Moldova to Durango leads her to open consignment shop"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Severin
Severin Spinu and his wife, Lana Spinu, who owns of Second Avenue Consignment, inside the store at 1163 East Second Ave. The Spinus immigrated from Moldova to Durango in 2007, and Lana Spinu opened the consignment store in July.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Lana Spinu\u2019s path to become a small-business owner has been longer and filled with more obstacles and surprises than most, but that probably goes with the territory when you arrive in Durango in 2007 from Moldova speaking only a few words of English.<\/p>\n

Her journey toward business ownership \u2013 she opened Second Avenue Consignment<\/a>, 1163 East Second Ave., in July \u2013 started in 2007 stocking shelves at south City Market.<\/p>\n

She laughs now, recalling her amazement at frozen dough that could be made into bread without kneading or setting aside for an hour or two to rise.<\/p>\n

\"Second
Second Avenue Consignment at 1163 East Second Ave. is in same building that was home to Second Time Around for more than three decades.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cI was in City Market, I didn\u2019t speak a word of English, and a man came up to me and started speaking to me. In Moldova, no one speaks to strangers,\u201d she said. \u201cI don\u2019t know why, I just started crying. I was wondering why is this man speaking to me? What should I do?,\u201d<\/p>\n

Spinu had followed her husband, Severin Spinu, to Durango and to south City Market through a work-travel program that provided people with a job for three months and then offered them a month to travel.<\/p>\n

The couple never realized Durango would become their home; Severin admits he knew nothing of Durango \u2013 he simply choose his American destination based on a list of wages offered in each town for various jobs.<\/p>\n

\u201cActually, I picked Durango because I could make $10 an hour. Back then, the minimum wage was $7.25 an hour, and it turned out even better for me because they put me on the night shift, and I made $12 an hour,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"Lana
Lana Spinu credits the community for helping her build up Second Avenue Consignment. The store opened in July and Spinu already has 140 consigners.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Lana soon followed Severin, who is now a real estate broker with Coldwell Banker Heritage House Realtors, to Durango and to south City Market<\/p>\n

Besides City Market, Lana had stints working in house cleaning, day care, McDonald\u2019s, Bealls and First National Bank of Durango (before it was bought by TBK Bank).<\/p>\n

Many of Lana\u2019s fellow McDonald\u2019s employees spoke Spanish, and she began picking up Spanish serving Big Macs, Happy Meals and fries.<\/p>\n

She also took English classes at the Durango Adult Education Center, where, during breaks, almost all of her fellow students spoke Spanish. She ended picking up more Spanish while learning English. Now, Lana, whose native Romanian language is a Romance language, is comfortable speaking both English and Spanish.<\/p>\n

The genesis for Second Avenue Consignment came after a brief period when Lana worked with Severin in real estate.<\/p>\n

The venture went less than smoothly.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have my own opinions, and he has his own opinions. This was the best decision for me, for both of us. I want to be my own boss,\u201d Lana said.<\/p>\n

\"Dianne
Dianne Heleno, with Coldwell Banker, who works with Severin Spinu in real estate, shops Second Avenue Consignment at 1163 East Second Ave.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Lana opened Second Avenue Consignment in July, slightly more than a month after small ma-and-pa businesses were allowed to reopen under COVID-19 restrictions.<\/p>\n

She said: \u201cI didn\u2019t know anything, and I had an empty building. But I always wanted to be a business owner and make my own decisions, and I knew it had been a consignment store for 30 years, and I didn\u2019t see why I couldn\u2019t make it work.<\/p>\n

The Spinus had lived in the Courthouse Apartments, across the street from the consignment shop, and Lana suspected the location\u2019s legacy as a consignment shop would work in her favor.<\/p>\n

Her hunch proved right.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have had 140 consigners in three months. I started with zero. The community helped me to build this,\u201d she said. \u201cAlmost everyone who comes in here tells me they are happy I reopened the store. Yesterday, I had a family come to shop here from Farmington.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lana credits her landlord, Sharon Schell, the longtime owner of Second Time Around, with helping her devise consignment contracts, learning software to track items, working on a point-of-sale system and answering questions from a rookie business owner.<\/p>\n

Second Avenue Consignment takes women\u2019s, children\u2019s and men\u2019s clothes as well as accessories, home d\u00e9cor and jewelery with the shop getting 60% of the sale.<\/p>\n

\"Second
Second Avenue Consignment at 1163 East Second Ave.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The shop is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday to Saturday.<\/p>\n

The Spinus now see Durango as home. They\u2019ve moved to a house in Dalton Ranch where they are raising their children Celina, 11, and Sebastian, 3.<\/p>\n

\u201cReally, we are the American dream,\u201d Severin said. \u201cPeople tell me things are tough here. I tell them go to Moldova for a month, and you\u2019ll see what tough means.\u201d<\/p>\n

Severin and Lana came to America with a group of about 16 from Moldova who had come after college. Both the Spinus are qualified to teach history and law in their home country.<\/p>\n

Most of Severin\u2019s friends settled in big cities, principally Chicago.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone wants to visit me now,\u201d he said. \u201cFor me big cities are all the same. When I see Chicago, I don\u2019t see a community. In Durango, everybody knows everyone. To me, that feels like a community.\u201d<\/p>\n

parmijo@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Moldovan immigrant fulfills dream of business ownership in Durango<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":51073,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[338,314,500],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-51072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-business-enterprises","tag-downtown-durango","tag-retail"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51072"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51072\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87892,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51072\/revisions\/87892"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51072"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=51072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}