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Despite social media posts that Ketch Harbor Pub and Pelagic Cantina & Fish Market have closed down following a dispute over unpaid rent, the tenants still remain in the building, Harbor District General Manager James Pruett said.
The Pelagic Hospitality Group operated three businesses, including Ketch, Pelagic Cantina and the fish market, on Harbor District-owned property at Pillar Point. The district said during a February meeting that Pelagic owed $129,580 in unpaid rent, however, management from the restaurant group said they haven’t paid the rent in protest of the district’s alleged mismanagement and disregard of Pelagic CEO David Westendorf’s cancer diagnosis.
Since then, the Harbor District issued a notice to Pelagic to either “pay their back rent or quit,” Pruett said, but he said the tenant has not communicated with the district or taken either of those options.
An attorney for Westendorf, Andrew Galvin, had no comment on the situation, but a March 16 Instagram post from Ketch said that the Harbor District Board of Commissioners ignored Westendorf’s ADA status and that “the rent reduction we’ve requested has turned into an eviction, giving us three days to get out.”
At a meeting April 15, the Harbor District Board of Commissioners weighed whether to issue a request for proposal for new tenants at the Pillar Point properties, but ultimately tabled the discussion. Next steps are still up in the air given that the tenant is maintaining residence at the property, Pruett said.
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“The district can do nothing, and let them continue to sit there and continue to incur back rent, the district could take them to court,” he said. “There’s all kinds of options … I don’t know which one the board will elect to do.”
Each month that the tenant remains in the three buildings, the district loses $20,500, Pruett said. Because of this financial burden, some commissioners said at their most recent meeting that the district should move forward with advertising site visits for new potential tenants.
“At some point the public has got to find out that this is potentially available,” Commissioner Tom Mattoush said.
The situation is far from ideal, Pruett said.
“It’s not a good situation. I hope to be able to get it resolved,” he said. “What the resolution is, I have no idea what it will be.”
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