Jul 2, 2008

Restaurant owner files lawsuit again

Longtime resident claims cinema project cost him business

By Shaun Bishop / Daily News Staff Writer

The owner of a downtown Redwood City diner has refiled a lawsuit against the city, claiming delays in construction of a downtown cinema project across the street from his restaurant cost him customers, employees and profits.

Bob Bryant, a city resident for more than 45 years, filed the suit Monday in Superior Court, more than a year after it was originally filed and later withdrawn.

The five-page complaint, essentially the same one that was filed in March 2007, seeks unspecified damages from the city for its role in approving the 20-screen cinema complex at the corner of Broadway and Middlefield Road.

Bryant says delays in the On Broadway theater project caused by inadequate planning and substandard work by the developer caused a prolonged drought of business for Bob's Courthouse Coffee Shop at 2198 Middlefield Road.

Between 2002 and 2006, construction crews closed roads around Bryant's diner, and workers took up all the available parking in the area, "crowding out plaintiff's employees and customers and hindering or preventing them from reaching" the restaurant, according to the suit.

The project was finished more than a year behind schedule in August 2006, according to the suit, "destroying the good will of the business and the profits the business would otherwise have generated."

It also says excavation and underground work damaged the floor and structure of Bryant's restaurant, which is still open on a block that today has only palm trees and vacant storefronts.

After the suit was filed last March, Bryant's attorney John Blake requested a large volume of public records from the city related to the cinema project.

With the statute of limitations on some of the structural damage running out, Blake asked the city to give him more time to review the records. City Attorney Stan Yamamoto agreed, and the suit was dismissed in July 2007.

Yamamoto extended the deadline for refiling twice - first to Dec. 31, 2007 and again to June 30, 2008 - saying he believed maybe the documents would convince Blake that the city is not responsible for Bryant's losses.

Blake apparently wasn't persuaded, and barely made the second deadline by filing on Monday.

Blake's office confirmed the lawsuit was refiled but declined to comment further.

Yamamoto said Tuesday he had not yet been served with the new suit and declined to comment.



E-mail Shaun Bishop at sbishop@dailynewsgroup.com.