Number 12.
Am I 2021-005-225-120 North 53rd Street?
Bart Levy is the attorney.
letter of support from 44th Ward
Democratic RCO
Mr. Levy
could you state your name and spell for the court reporter
please
my name is Bart Levy
B-A-R-T-L-E-V-Y
do you swear a firm to tell the truth
the whole truth and nothing but the truth
yes Mr. Chairman I do
could you identify your client and relationship to the property
my client is angel of fun llc okay our vice chair has a few questions
thank you mr levy do you agree to wait the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its
accuracy yes have you emailed the exhibit packet with proof of ownership tax compliance a copy of
the refusal or referral photos and or plans of the property five days in advance of this hearing
and have you met with the RCO and do you have a letter?
We have all of that.
Okay, great.
You may proceed and begin with sharing your screen.
All right, let me see if I can do that.
Green button at the bottom.
Green button at the bottom.
All right.
I hit share.
Great. Now the screen's frozen. Unfortunately, I...
Okay. We have somebody here who can help.
Try one more time.
All right. Try this.
one more time
okay should we have somebody could be helpful
okay uh yes mr uh levy do you have your documents open on the screen
Mr. Levy I'm not sure if he just having um computer issues
okay so Mr. Levy
Okay, so Mr. Levy.
And it looks like he's connecting there, I'm sure.
Hello?
Hi, Mr. Levy, how are we doing?
You know, I honestly wish this worked as well as it should, but...
Okay, so how do we do this?
in this group of i still have one more case yeah why don't i go to the case and i'll come back to
you as soon as i'm done okay thank you all right sure number 13 mi 2022
you'll have to get out mr levy i'll have to get out all right
MI 2022
004 555
1711 to 17
Rittenhouse
David Orphanides
is a complaint
against L&I
and also Leonard Reuter is the
attorney for the city
they're both
coming back in as panelists
thank you
good afternoon mr chairman members of the board hi how are you good good good thank you
could you state your name and i'll i'll swear you in and spell it please sure my name is david
orphanetes last name is spelled o-r-p-h-a-n-i-d-e-s right do you swear a firm to tell the truth the
whole truth, nothing but the truth. I do. Mr. Reuter? Good afternoon. May it please the board,
Leonard F. Reuter with the City of Philadelphia. That's R-E-U-T-E-R. Do you swear a firm to tell
the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? I do. I would also point out that this is
a an appeal from a zoning violation so um the city inspector uh gerardo or gerardo uh gonzalez
is also um out there i don't know if we're going to get to his testimony yet or anything like that
but i i do want to let you know that okay for sure so why don't we start with mr orphanages
versus and okay i mean typically in these cases it's the city that presents well good uh again i
you know it's it is 513 this is a somewhat uh different type of case for you all so i don't
know if you want us to just present opening arguments and then get into the case or if
this case is even going to get concluded today or how all right why don't we go with opening
our arguments we'll see where we stand all right well mr chair can excuse me one moment this is
hillary can we just um address that we did have uh another um that we did have another attorney
who had submitted exhibits and with and witnesses um in this case um and were requesting to be a
party could please address that issue first um you know we we do not believe the neighbors have a
standing in this. This is an issue between the complainant and the city's L&I department. So we
do not believe that they have standing. That doesn't mean that somebody could not call them
as a witness. Right. Okay. And that's the city's understanding. We believe that we can call or
even Mr. Orfinity's can call. And the person's name for the record is Leslie Gerstein. She's
the attorney. We believe that we could call her client as a witness. But I would note that
because her client is represented by an attorney that Ms. Gerstein would be allowed to be present
and, you know, online if that questioning occurs. We don't have an objection to that, but, you know,
the city would have, it would just get really weird in a code enforcement case for her to be
entered as a party. But, and it's totally up to you whether you want to allow her to examine or
cross-examine anybody. Again, we don't take a position on that. Yeah, right. So just by way
of opening, this matter concerns, we think this is a really simple question that ultimately boils
down to a purely legal issue because we think that all of the relevant facts are not in dispute.
And the relevant facts are there is a bar. It is a fairly well-known bar or it had been a well-known
bar operating at a different location during the pandemic. They closed, they have since reopened
in a space that is part of what I think they would call a boutique hotel. The boutique hotel
is located at 1711 to 17 Rittenhouse Square and that boutique hotel
Rittenhouse Square, and that boutique hotel operates by way of a variance that was originally
granted in 1998 for the property formerly known as 1713 to 1715 Rittenhouse Square,
and over the years from 1998 through 2005, what was originally characterized as a bed
and breakfast, which doesn't mean anything, that was never a defined term in the code
at that point, that expanded to, so now it encompasses what were formerly three separate
parcels, and now it goes from 1711 to 1717, Rittenhouse Square.
The permit applications at the time and the zoning approvals, which again were all submitted
by Mr. Orfanides himself,
in which the city's also adopted
as part of its exhibits,
so what we're calling the Zoning Archive.
Again, none of this is disputed, I think,
and I think Mr. Orfanides would jump in
if he thought there was a dispute.
So that operated as a hotel.
At the time,
those approvals were granted by the board,
that is all the way from 1998 to 2005.
The zoning code merely defined hotel as 10 or more dwelling units devoted to temporary housing, and at the time, they may have accessory commercial facilities for the use of its guests.
So since 2012, we now don't use the word hotel, we use the phrase visitor accommodation, and the current zoning code says that visitor accommodations, and this is 14-102 sub, I'm sorry, 14-601 sub 7 sub N.
and is in Nancy. Visitor Accommodations in it defined, the code
says it's uses that provide temporary lodging for fewer than 30 days where
rents are charged by the day or by the week or portion thereof
and may also provide food or entertainment primarily to visitors or tourists.
So there's no dispute
I think that the bar that is currently located at the hotel
and I believe the hotel's name is 1711 on
Rittenhouse um 1715 on Rittenhouse I'm sorry 1715 on Rittenhouse thank you thank you David um
the bar which is located at the hotel is known as Franklin Mortgage and Investment Company and
that's just kind of a weird name because the prior that was the name of the the bar when it
originally opened and it's named after um what was back in the uh days of prohibition a a speakeasy
that used to be located at somewhere else.
I forget where.
Anyway, it doesn't matter.
The point is that the bar advertises to the public.
The bar has a web presence.
They have an Instagram presence.
They have been covered in the news.
6ABC had a thing about them.
They've gotten extensive coverage in the media, reviews.
And we're talking since they have reopened at this location.
It was also well covered prior.
But what happened before, we don't think, how the bar operated before they went to this location is not at all relevant to this case.
So the question is, they advertise to the public.
They have a certain number of people that patronize the bar that are not guests of the hotel.
And again, I don't think there's any dispute that there are certainly a portion of the clientele of the bar are not guests of the hotel and that the bar clearly markets itself to the general public.
so the issue is whether or not um this bar primarily serves food or provides food and we
we can see that the word food uh incorporates or subsumes uh drinks um because they don't
actually serve food at this place i mean some snacks or something um
The question is whether or not a bar that advertises itself and is open to the public and has at any given time when it's operating a certain portion of its clientele who are not guests of the hotel,
whether that bar is providing food primarily to visitors and tourists.
I think Mr. Orphanides and I agree that in the definition of visitor accommodations, when it uses the word visitors, it has to mean guests of the hotel, because otherwise it means literally everyone in the world that might happen to go there, and therefore there wouldn't be any purpose to having that kind of restriction.
Uh, and that visitors means guests of the hotel. And that's the definition is visitor accommodations, which is now just what we use, uh, to cover hotels, motels, bed and breakfast, et cetera, et cetera.
And that visitors means guests of the hotel, and that's the definition.
the real issue here is what is a tourist and i know mr there is one little factual dispute uh
which which i wouldn't say it's a little factual dispute but it's how like how many people uh or
what percentage of people in the bar at any given time are in fact guests of the hotel and mr
orphanetes is going to argue if it's less if it's more than 50 percent then they are primarily
serving visitors of the hotel. And I think we would concede that that's probably correct.
The problem here is that L&I is not in any kind of position to go to and conduct an inspection
of the bar and literally interview everybody and find out where they're sleeping tonight.
We don't know how many people are guests at the hotel. We do know that the bar advertises
extensively to the public. They have a strong public presence, a strong web presence. They
are covered extensively in the media. And that the current operation of the bar and the hotel,
they have a placard outside, an A-frame, which indicates that this Franklin mortgage is in the
hotel. So again, on its face, it seems self-evident that the bar intends to be open to the general
public. So the way we look at it is that it's the difference between, say, if you're in a hotel
that has gym and pool facilities for guests that is not open to the public, that's fine. That's
what hotels are allowed to do that. And I think they're even required to have that if they want
to be like a two or three star hotel or whatever. But if you have a hotel that happens to have a
Philadelphia sporting club in the hotel, and that sporting club is open to anybody that is a member
of the public that wants to join the sporting club, that is not part of the hotel, but is in
fact a non-accessory use. It would either be a separate main use that happens to be in the same
building or be considered a non-accessory use. So we think that this is more like having a sporting
club at the hotel as opposed to just simply having a gym for guests. We think that the definition
in visitor accommodations means you have tea service or coffee service or maybe a wine night
or something for guests at the hotel,
and if they have friends or people that are visiting them
while they're in town, that's fine.
And we just think it's self-evident that the marketing
and the position that Franklin Mortgage has taken here
indicates that they are primarily serving the general public.
So we do have Inspector Gonzalez, he's here.
He's able to testify about his observations.
I will concede that Mr. Gonzalez was not able to enter the bar the first night he did an inspection or attempted an inspection back in April.
But he has since gone there. He was there yesterday.
So again, I was hoping we can get a stipulation about what his testimony would be and what the layout is of the place.
And, you know, we just leave it up to the board to determine whether or not, you know, this bar, this hotel and the bar comply with the definition of visitor accommodation or whether they've gone beyond that and now would therefore need, well, in this case, probably a variance.
Because the zoning classification here is RM1, which actually doesn't permit visitor accommodations.
That's a lawful variance.
That's fine.
But also does not permit a bar restaurant to operate at this location.
So, like I said, we can get into the specific.
Why don't we let Mr. Orfanides do his opening, and then we'll figure out what we're going to do.
David?
All right. Thank you. Thank you, Lynn. So I represent and I represent the owner of the property. I represent 1711 to 1717 Rittenhouse LLC.
see. They purchased the property at bank sale. It was a hotel closed. The family that operated
the hotel previously were actually clients of mine at a different property. I've been
Had a different property.
I've been inside that property when it was previously operated.
inside that property when it was previously operated.
Saw the inside of it.
We had meetings there for a different case.
My clients purchased it in 21.
They secured a building permit.