By Lou Caravella
On May 21, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Douglas Stern issued his ruling against Ports O’ Call Restaurant and its bid to remain open during construction of the San Pedro Public Market.
Stern’s ruling in favor of the Port of Los Angeles effectively means that, barring a successful appeal, the 57-year-old waterfront landmark and local gathering place will be demolished in a matter of weeks. Stern’s ruling, however, is deeply flawed and comes at a steep price to the local community.
First, the judge’s contention that “the far greater harm is that which may be suffered by the city” if it doesn’t secure its 30-day eviction is nonsensical. Ports O’ Call Restaurant’s closure would constitute absolute harm. With no remaining guarantees that the restaurant will ever again reopen and a financially devastating three-year closure, the restaurant would close permanently. The harm suffered by the city, on the other hand, is negligible to nonexistent, as phased development can continue much as it has through the present with minor adjustments to development plans (See Carlos M. Garcia’s suggestions in Big Reveal Threatens Ports O’ Call Restaurant, published in the May 3 edition of Random Lengths News.
On the contrary, leaving a beloved local landmark and cash cow open for business is a far greater benefit to the city than shuttering it. In fact, at a public presentation on March 20, that was the port’s own argument for keeping the Fish Market open for business during development. (Why the port doesn’t extend the same favorable logic toward POC Restaurant is a point of discussion in San Pedro.)
Regarding the eviction process, Stern writes, “All parties understood that the process was fluid.”
This claim is demonstrably untrue. It ignores a number of specific guarantees made in writing and publicly. Just because an eviction process doesn’t go as planned doesn’t mean the process was fluid by design. Just because an agreement is retroactively labeled “fluid” doesn’t mean the agreement was, in fact, fluid and/or understood to be such by all parties involved.
One example of a very concrete, non-fluid promise by POLA to the POC Restaurant was made in the 2009 Final Proposed Project Summary when the port promised a replacement site. Certainly, this agreement allowed for some flexibility of site location, but there was nothing flexible or fluid about the fact that a promise had been made and, later, broken. It is that broken promise that will destroy a local landmark and local jobs.
But Stern may have also inadvertently undermined the port — and cautioned its potential partners — by ruling that the “process” of developing the San Pedro Public Market is “fluid.” After all, why would potential lessees trust the port’s processes now that they have a reputation for fluidity — a reputation officially assigned by a judge, no less? For a development that hasn’t even confirmed an anchor tenant yet, that’s not a reputation that inspires confidence,. Meanwhile, booting out a popular, high-earning tenant at such a vulnerable phase of the development process shows more hubris than wisdom. It even makes a martyr out of the already popular owner of POC Restaurant.
It didn’t have to be this way. All three San Pedro Neighborhood Councils passed resolutions calling on the port to allow POC Restaurant to remain open at least through 2018. The port not only ignored these resolutions, but sued the restaurant instead. So, here we are.
Ultimately, Stern’s ill-conceived ruling reinforces and rewards the disconnect in communication that has existed among the port, POC Village tenants and the public since the inception of the project. The irony is that by winning its case in court, the port insists on losing — for no known or good reason — a far more valuable long-term asset: Ports O’ Call Restaurant.
Louis Caravella is a web developer living in San Pedro and a member of the Central San Pedro Neighborhood Council.