Broken In Haft

Monday, Aug. 23, 1993 By JOHN GREENWALD
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Less than one year ago, Herbert Haft and his family embodied the American business principle that if you get out from behind the counter, keep your elbows sharp and put your family to work, you can become a very rich clan. But lo, the destruction when that same ferocious solidarity and energy turn mean and inward.

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The Hafts' vast retail empire was born 39 years ago in Washington, with Gloria nudging her husband Herbert out of the back of their drugstore and the couple boldly borrowing from Gloria's parents and liquidating their children's bonds to gamble on a discount pharmacy. The venture thrived and grew into the Dart drugstore chain, which the Hafts went on to parlay into a retailing conglomerate. With $1.2 billion in sales today and about 600 outlets in seven states, the Hafts' Dart Group, which includes Crown Books and Trak Auto stores, has kept the family in Range Rovers and Florida and California mansions and at charity balls. But now a family feud of operatic dimensions has erupted, threatening to undo all that the Hafts have worked so fiercely for. "Herbert is likely to burn everything down," says a gloomy insider. "It would be surprising if the company survived."

In June, Herbert Haft kicked Gloria and their older son Robert off the Dart Group board for allegedly conspiring to speed him out the door. Directors then fired Robert, 40, as president of Dart and replaced him with his brother Ronald, 34, who had headed a subsidiary.

Last week both Robert and Gloria struck back. Robert, who was his father's carefully groomed heir apparent before the blowup, filed suit to recover more than $2 million in cash and stock that he claimed was owed him under employment contracts. And in divorce court, Gloria sued for legal separation from her husband of 45 years. Charging that Herbert had beaten her, conducted extramarital affairs and engaged in financial chicanery, Gloria demanded control of either Dart or the family's real estate company. Responding through a lawyer, Haft denied any wrongdoing and accused Gloria and Robert of forming an "unholy partnership" to seize control of the family's holdings.

The divorce suit instantly replaced White House gaffes as Topic A in Washington. The charges of abuse led wags to wonder just how much of a punch the diminutive Haft, who stands little more than 5 ft. tall even with his Don King-like surge of white hair, really could pack. For his part, Haft alleged that his wife had physically abused him and said Gloria and Robert had launched a media campaign to "destroy me."

For Herbert, 72, the battle marks a brutal climax to a career that has left behind a trail of business enemies. He fought with his brother-in-law, who charged in a lawsuit that Haft had cheated him out of investments in the family's drugstore chain. When Haft's brother Leonard sided with the brother- in-law, Herbert broke off relations with Leonard for 15 years. Herbert made frequent use of his toughness in the 1980s, when he and Robert mounted campaigns to take over such retailing giants as Dayton Hudson and Safeway Foods. While the Hafts never purchased those behemoths, they walked off with fat profits after takeover fever jacked up the price of the target companies' shares.