Sketch reopens tonight and El Diablo reopens tomorrow after owner Jesse Morreale gets unanimous support from the Board of Appeals

Who gives a caca?

Screamingatawall: takes a big man to fire anonymous volleys from the safety of your mom's basement. Lori and the entire Westword staff have reported on this with nothing but Professionalism throughout this entire saga. If you have a bone to pick with Jesse, whatever. But leave Lori alone. You just sound like a schoolyard bully. Punk.

The City apologists have not spent any real time to see what was going on here.  The building was safe, the building IS safe and the building will remain safe.  The City smoke screens everyone is using to try and make Jesse be the bad guy is simply the thing City bearuacrats do to justify their jobs.  Create and then enforce silly rules to protect their power and remind ordinary citizens that they are peons in their eyes.  It's about time someone stood up to the building inspectors.  I hope it is a catalyst for others to come forward.

Lori Midson and others, please read the story more carefully: the city granted the owner more time to do repairs in order to make the building safe. The owner knew he had work to do to ensure safety and knew the time line on which to make them. He failed to comply and this temporary resolution only extends the time he has to complete the work. Again, the Westword assumes restaurant owners can do no wrong; an utterly uncritical and uninformed perspective. Imagine a future in which diners are injured during a snow storm. Everyone would say "Where was the building inspector? Why did the city drop the ball." Lori Midson: just because you get free tacos when you go to El Diablo does not mean you should compromise your journalistic ethics at every opportunity.

Lot of information seems to be missing from this article.  Let’s see if other local media did a better job of reporting on this.

Westword seems to suggest that the owner had not violated any codes, the City needlessly shut the restaurant down, and the owner “received unanimous support from the Board.”

To the contrary, according to another media outlet, the Board found that the owner had violated building codes, and granted only a temporary lifting of the notices.  According to that other outlet: “‘With the temporary lifting of the ‘unsafe structure’ and ‘order to vacate’ notices until Oct. 1, the board ruled: ‘The appellant shall be ordered to obtain all necessary permits and comply with the work plan dated August 9, 2011.’”

Westword, without even attempting to talk with a city representative, asserts that the city “abruptly” closed the restaurants, suggesting that the owner had no prior notice of the violations, his obligation to fix them or the deadline to do so.

Not so, says another media outlet, which had the temerity to try to obtain both sides of the story.  That outlet reported: “Burns [a city representative] said there are some substantial structural repairs that need to happen to the building as well as some fire safety issues. ‘And some issues with the roof, and those were all detailed in a work plan that has been in existence between the owner and the city for a couple of years now,’ Burns said.”

People will have to decide for themselves whether Westword’s reporting on this issue has been fair and objective, or something else.

what were Roach and Buckey's points?

would like to know details of "some of the unresolved issues"

The need to pay back more than the $150K.  The city officials who made this seemingly arbitrary decision should be terminated immediately and the city should pay back not only court costs, but three weeks of missing profit for Morreale and three weeks of lost salary for the 137 people that were put out of work.  Perhaps the best thing for the city to do would be to pay for all the necessary upgrades to the building themselves.  That might go some small way toward making up for the horrible damage they've done.

and will the city pay him back the 150 grand he lost fighting this BS?????????   somehow, i doubt it.