Lucky Baldwin’s British Pub & Café in Old Town Pasadena was dying 15 years ago. That’s when new owners David Farnworth and Peggy Simonian took over. They introduced a selection of Belgian and English ales, worked hard and created a homey atmosphere.

They turned it around, and the bar was successful enough that the British expatriates launched a second Lucky Baldwin’s in Sierra Madre. They’re now opening a third, Lucky Baldwin’s Trappiste Pub, in east Pasadena. The longtime business partners are even thinking about a fourth.

But Farnworth may not be able to work at that one. He has a degenerative disease that’s reduced his arms and legs to skin and bones. He can’t lift his arms, hold a glass, turn a key or speak for any length of time without becoming exhausted.

“It’s so difficult for me to lift one arm up, I can’t even sign my own name,” he said. “Peggy has to sign for me.”

Now that Farnworth, 58, and Simonian, 44, will be juggling three locations, it means Simonian has had to take on more of the workload. They hired a general manager to help handle the staffing, marketing and other aspects of the business.

“Neither of us knows where it’s going to go,” Simonian said. “It’s a sad situation. It’s awful to watch and to not know what’s ahead or what’s coming up.”

What’s more, Farnworth, a respected beer connoisseur, has always been in charge of working with distributors and breweries to keep the pub stocked with rare brews such as Russian Rivers’ Pliny the Younger, a pale ale that only gets released once a year to select bars. But Simonian and Farnworth are thinking about handing off some of the duties, such as overseeing the bars’ beer inventory.

“On the beer aspect, I did everything,” Farnworth said. “For me to walk downstairs – the fridges are downstairs – it’s so tough. It kills me going down stairs and then going back up.”

Urban Miyares, founder and president of Disabled Businesspersons Association, headquartered at San Diego State University’s Interwork Institute, said his organization serves about 3,000 business owners annually. Most of them were disabled when they started their businesses, but 20 percent fall into Farnworth’s category: those who were disabled by an accident or a disease in the midst of their careers. He said oftentimes such business owners decide to sell or shutter their establishments, so Farnworth deserves credit for sticking it out as long as he can.

“Most people just quit and go on disability benefits and wait to die,” Miyares said.

Turning it around

So why expand now, given the situation?

They said they had planned to open the third pub before Farnworth’s condition became serious, and when the space became available, they decided to proceed. And the fourth location? Simonian said she’ll have to see if the third is successful and if she can handle the increasing workload.

It was 1982 when Farnworth, a British native, moved to Los Angeles from South Africa, where he was working as an engineer, to handle marketing for the British Tourist Authority. Simonian, who had been working for the Tourist Authority in London, moved to the L.A. office in 1992 and they quickly became friends.

Farnworth became a minority partner in Lucky Baldwin’s in 1995. The bar moved to its location in Old Town Pasadena the next year, and was soon on the brink of going out of business because it was run down and poorly managed.

So Farnworth asked Simonian if she wanted to become co-owner of Lucky Baldwin’s in order to help him turn it around. She agreed.

“I came here and there wasn’t a soul here,” Simonian remembered. “And I said, ‘What are we buying?’ Because it wasn’t like we were buying customers.”

They were only making about $600 per day but needed about $1,000 to pay rent. They both continued to work at the Tourist Authority and spent evenings at the pub, Simonian waitressing and Farnworth tending bar.

It took a few years for them to build a clientele. They eventually were able to quit their tourist board jobs.

David Hatcher, a revenue manager for West Hollywood, has been going to the original Lucky Baldwin’s in Old Town Pasadena for more than a decade. He comes for the atmosphere.

“You feel like you know the people who work there,” Hatcher said. “You are friends with them. It’s a home away from home.”

Farnworth and Simonian, who’ve retained their strong accents despite years in Southern California, opened the Sierra Madre location in 2006. That was when Farnworth started to have trouble lifting his shoulders and arms, and he was beginning to lose weight.

At first, doctors suspected amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, a debilitating illness that destroys nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord. At USC, his doctor was unable to conclusively diagnose ALS because Farnworth lacked certain symptoms. He received the same inconclusive diagnosis in a second opinion from a specialist at UCLA. Doctors said it’s also possible that Farnworth has Kennedy’s disease, a rare condition that causes muscle weakness and wasting.

Farnworth no longer enjoys going to work. That’s because when customers want to greet him he has to prop his right hand up with his left to shake hands.

“I used to love to come here,” Farnworth said. “But now I keep away. I don’t want to meet people … because they want to shake my hand and I look stupid.”

But Simonian said some things haven’t changed.

“He tells me what to do now,” she said. “But he always has.”