Update: TiGeorges Chicken Is Not Closing For Good Today

My friend TiGeorges Laguerre has done it again.

Contrary to previous -- and accurate at the time -- reporting by others, Laguerre's TiGeorges' Chicken restaurant and de facto Haitian cultural center on Glendale Boulevard will *not* be closing at the end of January 2013.

Instead, Laguerre tells me -- and a government source confirms -- that he is actively working with L.A. City officials to keep from shutting down.

"The goal," Laguerre said during an email exchange, "is to relocate or upscale my present location."

Laguerre says that he has made a request for a beer and wine license. "I am going to wait and see which direction this will take me," he said. "I am now following the city's footsteps."

Given that Laguerre received last rites as a newborn, and given the various catastrophes to visit his business (a fire, for example) and the nation of his birth (a devastating earthquake, for example), it somehow isn't a great surprise to learn that Laguerre has managed to go all Tom Sawyer on the rest of us and be present for his much-loved restaurant's funeral.

Here, for instance, is the gorgeous eulogy written by LA Weekly's Amy Scattergood.

And here's the Downtown News' original, and perhaps high-impact, scoop.

That brief news item may turn out to be the restaurant's saving grace. Tamika Taylor from the Rapid Response Department of the City of Los Angeles was doing her daily due diligence when she came across a link to the Downtown News story on the website DailyJobCuts.com.

Taylor and a colleague then connected Laguerre with a colleague from BusinessSource, part of the Mayor's Office of Economic and Business Policy.

According totext on thisofficial website: "The Los Angeles BusinessSource Centers provide startup ventures and current small business owners various cost effective tools to make their business a success. Through these tools, small businesses can grow and remain competitive within the City of Los Angeles."

As for what happens next ... more details as they come.

Jeremy Rosenberg is the author of Arrival Stories and Laws That Shaped LA for KCET Departures, as well as the "as told to" co-author of Laguerre's unpublished memoir manuscript, "LET ME TELL YOU! From Haiti to Brooklyn to Echo Park: The Life & Times of TiGeorges Laguerre." Read TiGeorges Laguerre's Arrival Story.

Contact or follow Rosenberg on Twitter: @LosJeremy