{"id":63,"date":"2015-08-05T20:01:35","date_gmt":"2015-08-06T00:01:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/thelegaldish\/?p=63"},"modified":"2020-08-04T16:48:48","modified_gmt":"2020-08-04T20:48:48","slug":"waterfront-restaurant-loses-eviction-trial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/thelegaldish\/2015\/08\/05\/waterfront-restaurant-loses-eviction-trial\/","title":{"rendered":"Waterfront Restaurant Loses Eviction Trial"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Constantine Mittendorf<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"SinbadsClose\"<\/p>\n

The owners of Sinbad\u2019s spent last week in San Francisco Superior Court. They have been in an ongoing battle to keep their 40 year old bay-front restaurant afloat.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

As we reported earlier, the Port of the City of San Francisco wants to make room for a larger ferry terminal. So when Sinbad\u2019s lease ran out, the City refused to renew it. Sinbad\u2019s refused to leave, the City sent a notice of eviction, and Sinbad\u2019s still refused to leave. Then Sinbad\u2019s sued the City for allegedly acting in bad faith, and the City sued to evict Sinbad\u2019s.<\/p>\n

Last week, it came down to a jury trial to hear the City\u2019s eviction case. Sinbad\u2019s lost.<\/p>\n

I was able to speak with one of the jurors about how the jury saw the case. He said the jury deliberated for nearly two days, and they considered the long story of the Sinbad\u2019s eviction. The jury learned about government agencies involved in the ferry terminal expansion. It learned about the public hearing process and how Sinbad\u2019s had belatedly and unsuccessfully opposed the expansion. Also, the jury learned about a signed agreement between Sinbad\u2019s and the City from 2012 \u2013 Sinbad\u2019s agreed to vacate the property by the end of 2014, and in turn, the City agreed to forgive $85,000 in rent.<\/p>\n

However, when 2014 came to an end, Sinbad\u2019s refused to close its doors.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like a game of chess. One side makes a move, then the other side makes a move.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The juror I spoke to was sympathetic to Sinbad\u2019s and its employees, but also felt that Sinbad\u2019s was probably \u201cgaming the system\u201d to stay open as long as possible. In the end, the jury found in favor of the City in a 10-2 vote. Then on Friday, the court ordered Sinbad\u2019s to pay $71,616.44 in additional unpaid rent. The court also allowed the City to recover the restaurant property.<\/p>\n

Later that day, I called Sinbad\u2019s to see if it was still open. Turns out, it\u2019s still open and there are no plans to close anytime soon. The person I spoke to said \u201cit\u2019s like a game of chess. One side makes a move, then the other side makes a move.\u201d Looks like Sinbad\u2019s could be taking the full amount of time allowed by law to consider an appeal.\u00a0 In the mean-time, it\u2019s open.<\/p>\n

One thing is for sure, whether Sinbad’s is playing the system or getting played, knowing the rules is absolutely necessary in the restaurant game.<\/p>\n

We will keep you updated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Constantine Mittendorf The owners of Sinbad\u2019s spent last week in San Francisco Superior Court. They have been in an ongoing battle to keep their 40 year old bay-front restaurant afloat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[46,42,45,13,38,41,39,37,47,44,48,43,40],"ppma_author":[201],"class_list":["post-63","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-appeal","tag-bad-faith","tag-breach-of-contract","tag-constantine-mittendorf","tag-eviction","tag-jury-trial","tag-real-estate","tag-restaurant","tag-restaurant-contract","tag-san-francisco","tag-settlement-agreement","tag-sinbads","tag-unlawful-detainer"],"authors":[{"term_id":201,"user_id":6,"is_guest":0,"slug":"duanemorris3","display_name":"Duane Morris","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/843ff6e7a8fe5fc92109b47a45f34b6cf0ea499e6e788db23456c838b0ae6747?s=96&d=blank&r=g","0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/thelegaldish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/thelegaldish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/thelegaldish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/thelegaldish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/thelegaldish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/thelegaldish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/thelegaldish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/thelegaldish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/thelegaldish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/thelegaldish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=63"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}