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A Road Home turns into Road Kill It has been 18 months since Gabrielle Restaurant cooked its last meal as a New Orleans restaurant. In our minds as the owners, there could be hardly anything worse than having something like this happen. We operated a restaurant for nearly14 years in a city that has the best food and people in the world. Our life as restaurateurs came to a stop 18 months ago for reasons that are still being debated upon nonetheless it was a chapter in our life that came to an end. The celebrations Gabrielle Restaurant served to patrons were over. We started planning our comeback before the signal was given that the city was open for business once again. The lights were coming back on and the recovery was under way. Our location on Esplanade Ave. was badly damaged; no electricity or gas (restored in Jan., 2006) and telephones were going to be out for a while. Phone lines and the business telephone number play such a critical role in the operation of a restaurant. It was our main source of communication with customers for reservations and credit card transactions. Gabrielle’s phone number became part of our identity. They even had a special clause in our insurance policy about it. The policy that no one ever really opened until 18 months ago but paid to have it each year in case a catastrophe occurred. Certainly, we had a catastrophe and there can be no dispute of that. The policy we purchased through Argonaut Great Central Insurance Company read like an ambiguous mess and had to be studied daily in the months following the first incident. Its certainly wasn’t easy to understand and our adjuster from Chicago who said he was in the insurance business for 20 years had to do the same thing. He told us that we should look for a new location because things weren’t being restored as fast as they should be and understood that many businesses in our area would be without “overhead lines of communication” as the special clause states for a while. Great Argonaut pledged to keep us in business. The insurance company never told us where we should move to nor have they ever finished helping us recover from our loss and made good on their pledge. They sent us a cancellation letter in February of 2006. Our dispute with them is unfortunately being litigated on in the judicial system. How long till it is settled is anyone’s guess? Mary and I viewed this event as an opportunity to make things better for our family and livelihood. We always knew of the beautiful place down the street after moving our residence into the area several years back. I would look at some of the functions going on when driving by on the way home from a night at work. I was happy to see that people were having a good time because something unique might have happened there. A girl at the intercontinental hotel recently told us that she had her wedding party there and stayed around till 3:00 a.m. celebrating with family and friends. She said she loved it and was so excited to hear that we might be moving our restaurant there. Many people today share her feelings and nobody was more excited than seeing us comeback than Mary and I. We started planning to reopen and couldn’t wait to tell the world where we are moving. Certainly this was good news to be shared with everyone and the paper even put something in it about us moving to a new venue. The business carried a permanent occupational permit with a table service restaurant printed on it. We thought this was great because the time it would take to go through a process of acquiring new permits would be very long so we figured it would be best to purchase the injured business and clear part of the road to our own recovery. Our dealings with city hall in the past with our businesses were frustrating to say the least and knew that nothing ever gets done fast. The local election was now in the run off time frame for our district Shelley Midura versus Jay Batt. I have never been active in any political campaign and always stayed out of endorsing one person over the other because doing so would mean taking a side and alienating patrons. The run-off was very negative with “No Batt” signs seen on many grounds. I went down to the city hall department of revenue office for the second time after receiving temporary restaurant permits on the first trip. City Hall issued me another temporary permit on the second trip with Not operating on it. I was told that I would have to talk to my councilperson to receive a permanent table service restaurant permit. Mary and I both wondered how we could operate or plan any business on a month-to-month basis and did this mean we couldn’t open. Shelley Midura had been elected in the runoff and I set up an appointment with her. Our only meeting with Shelley was held on July 25, 2006. After the short meeting with Ms. Midura she said that she would help us out with our problem. She mentioned to us that Gabrielle’s was brought up in a pre-election debate and became a political issue during the campaign. We found out later that Batt had signed a letter to the neighbors stating that he would not allow Gabrielle to open on Henry Clay. I received a note from Ms. Midura in late August of 2006 regarding our request for help and that the business at Henry Clay would need to file for a conditional use permit to receive a permanent table service restaurant permit. I then went about trying to find out what business I could operate out of 438 Henry Clay because I knew that this PROCESS was now going to take a long time. Where could I find it in writing as to what we can operate with the permits that presently exist? Everyone at city hall made “No restaurant” perfectly clear to me even though a table service restaurant permit was issued to us and carried by the ongoing business we purchased for the last 10 years. While spending the last quarter of the 2006 renewing my monthly table service restaurant permits and opening lines of communication with the neighbors unbeknownst to us another campaign was about to escalate. It started with soliciting petitions against Gabrielle around the neighborhood. Mike Sherman and Mr. and Mrs. Eddie Sapir were orchestrating this. Mike Sherman was “chief of Staff” to Eddie Sapir when he was a City Councilman. Mike moved into a condominium down the street 10 months after the storm. The “No Gabrielle” sign campaign started on the night of November 21, 2006, our wedding anniversary. It was hard for my family to see these negative signs stating that we are not wanted and we are breaking the law. These degrading signs are still posted today. Several neighbors wanted me to start my own campaign of yard signs and petitions. I responded by putting out a clipboard promoting our return to business at the December Farmer’s Market because Gabrielle was selling the plate lunches there. Eddie Sapir was busy filing a complaint to the BZA in November contesting the legitimacy of a business at Henry Clay and Laurel. No notice of this hearing was ever given to us. We collected a lot of signatures from our clipboard at the Farmer’s Market and presented them to Shelley Midura`s office. She responded with note saying that she is observing the situation. “A hearing shall be heard in 45 days after filing a complaint with the BZA” the law states. Mike Sherman and Eddie Sapir did not attend the BZA hearing in December. They filed for a continuation. After 45 days was up, Howell Crosby, our recently hired Attorney, filed a temporary injunction with civil district court to uphold the city’s own written law. Many letters were written to Shelly Midura at this time. She replied to these e-mails with the same misinformed letter to everyone saying we are filing suit against the city of New Orleans and cannot comment. This letter was never corrected by Councilperson Shelly Midura`s office as to its inaccuracy (My wife Mary spent a long time replying to each heartfelt letter of support concerning us and personally thanked them). The temporary restraining order was contested by a new set of lawyers with Russ Herman representing them. Who is “they” can only be answered by whoever hired Russ Herman and his law firm. Mike Sherman and Eddie Sapir are both Attorneys. Another BZA hearing on Gabrielle was heard in February. Eddie Sapir attended it with his hired Attorney Basil Uddo. We were never notified of this second hearing by city hall. The BZA ruled anyway that our business was legal. What kind of business is legal at 438 Henry Clay? “Reception Hall Rental or Leasing” is what I am now issued from city hall and heard earlier rumors that this was going to be issued to Gabrielle at 438 Henry Clay. During January and February I worked on reaching an agreement with the neighbors and thought that maybe Shelly Midura would get involved in this neighborhood process but she declared that Gabrielle would have to go through her “PROCESS” no matter what was worked out. Her process would take 6+ months and not a sure council vote in the end. A court battle would take 4 years a lot of money and the attorneys for “them” were telling us that they were prepared to do this. Nothing in the life of a business is a sure thing especially the way our municipal government operates. I now know its time to concede our cause because we are not only up against a horde of Attorneys at whatever I operate at 438 Henry Clay but shady politicians that blame business for their own faults. As a business owner, we merely try to follow the laws in this city. We have spent so much time, money and effort into Gabrielle Restaurant’s comeback at 438 Henry Clay and now cannot cook and serve any of our dishes to anyone without completely “ignoring the law” and upsetting the neighbors “quality of life” as Councilperson Shelley Midura recently told us. I asked her at a District A forum if she could give me some kind of definition, rules and regulations regarding any business operating out of 438 Henry Clay. Her reply to me was that she would help work something out just as she said to us in July of 2006. We can thank so very much the
businesses, associations, organizations and people that have helped
or offered to help us in our attempted comeback and tried to thwart
these events from occurring. We gave it our best but now its time
for us to move on. Thanks for the Memories New Orleans!
Links
to related articles regarding our situation:
A Letter from Councilmember Midura |
