Talks continue as city nuisance suit goes to court

By Dan DuChene
Feb. 25, 2009    ·    9:22 a.m.

The city’s suit against a local party store has gone back to court, nearly 100 days after it set a 60-day time window for negotiation.

Assistant City Attorney Karl Barr and Jim Washington, a Detroit-based attorney representing Brandy’s Liquor Shoppe, were in front of Judge Timothy Connors last week debating a nuisance complaint filed against the store by the Ypsilanti Police Department in Oct. 2008.

A show cause hearing was held Friday and an evidentiary hearing is scheduled for March 5. However, both sides are still negotiating and have limited discussions to a few key points.

If the city wins the nuisance abetment suit, a padlock order would be placed on the store, located at Michigan Avenue and Summit Street. Once the order is put into effect, the store could not be opened for a year and all of the goods inside the store would seized and sold, with the funds going to the city.

The suit alleges city police responded to more than 200 calls to Brandy’s since Jan. 2007. The next closest number is 77, made to Eagles Market on Ballard and Cross streets. The city alleges Brandy’s has become a hot bed for drugs, aggravated assault and other crimes.

The Hannas, the family that owns the store, maintain they are being unfairly targeted by the police when the problems at Brandy’s are a general problem all over the city.

“Brandy’s itself is not responsible,” Washington said. “We do not give any credibility to the city’s self serving statistics.”

Washington said the numbers the city reports are misleading due to over-enforcement by the police at Brandy’s and including calls that do not have anything to do with the store, such as traffic accidents.

Police Chief Matt Harshberger said some of the calls reported are not due to criminal activity, but they pulled all the calls indiscriminately against all similar businesses. Thus, he maintains the data used to compare Brandy’s to other liquor stores in the city is similar.

At several different City Council meetings, groups of residents have come out to speak about Brandy’s. The store’s customers have come out to support the Hannas and members of the Midtown Neighborhood Association have spoken out against the store.

In November, City Council voted to allow a 60-day stay on the court proceedings to try and encourage a negotiation that would allow the store to remain open. Both sides said they have met and continue to negotiate with the new court date approaching.

“I don’t like to kill ants with hand grenades,” Barr said.

Barr said it is not in the city’s interests to have commercial property lying vacant and does not want to see a store that customers rely on disappear, but steps need to be taken to curb the problems the city has with the store.

It has been suggested a compromise could be reached by requiring certain actions from the store, anything from maintaining regular private security and video surveillance to reducing the store’s operating hours and limiting alcohol sales.

“It’s possible we could reach an agreement,” Washington said.

He said the negotiations at this point are just down to a few specific items, mostly the length of time any probationary action could be taken against the store. He said Brandy’s will be responding to an offer from the city by the end of this week.

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