While they were rehabilitating the hotel, they secured a building permit to rehabilitate the first floor and the cellar.
to convert that into a restaurant lounge area, meeting room, conference area for the hotel as part of the hotel.
That permit was issued, as I said, in 21.
That permit included a full kitchen in the cellar.
um it called for an occupancy of 84 people indicating uh those plans that were approved
by ellen i indicated that the hotel the guest room occupancy was 38 so they clearly permitted
a greater occupancy than was then are the number of uh guests that stayed there um this was during
obviously during the it was in march of 21 that that building permit was issued um during the
pandemic uh my clients you'll hear you'd hear testimony that they were unable to get the
equipment because of obviously because of the well-known supply chain issues so they scaled back
and moved forward with an amended building permit application with the same occupancy
but without the full kitchen in the cellar still their intention um once this is sorted out
to finish that kitchen.
Unfortunately, now with the citation that's happened
and the issues that have been raised,
we don't know what that kitchen is going to be serving
until this is resolved.
Len mentioned an inspector coming out back in April.
That was the first day that the restaurant lounge opened.
The restaurant lounge is part of the hotel.
It's not a separate business.
You'll hear testimony that while it was a separate business at one time, my clients purchased the name, purchased the recipes, and hired one of the owners as the manager.
But the restaurant lounge meeting conference area functions solely as part of the hotel.
It's not a separate entity.
You'll see on the plans and photographs that you can access it from within the hotel as well as from the rear street or alley.
It's Latimer Street that's also known as Schubert Alley.
That's the rear of properties on the north side of the 1700 block of Rittenhouse Square.
Properties that are front on the west side of 17th Street to mid-rise, high-rise buildings.
And then the rear of properties on the south side of the 1700 block of Locust Street.
On our side of Rittenhouse Square, you'll see that there's only one single family dwelling that's next to us.
There's a couple across the street on South Rittenhouse Square.
Then behind us, across Schubert Alley, they're the rears of multi-use buildings, commercial on the ground floor and some residential units above.
So my clients relied on those permits, expended building permits, which showed an occupancy of 84 people and spent a lot of money.
And you'd see doing very nice improvements to that rear portion of the hotel to make it suitable for the, once again, restaurant lounge meeting conference room area.
the day we opened I got a call about two o'clock before we even opened you'll hear testimony that
Ellen and I showed up at our door claiming telling us that we couldn't serve people who
weren't guests before we'd even opened I got on the phone communicated with the law department
We talked about the definition of visitor accommodations.
I understand that later in the evening, Inspector Gonzalez went to come out, but did not go inside the building.
Did not go inside the restaurant lounge meeting conference room area that night.
In fact, the only time he's been inside the meeting conference room restaurant lounge area was yesterday afternoon.
I happened to be in my car nearby.
I, the manager, Jason, who was one of the owners of the Franklin Mortgage and Investment
Company when it was a standalone business, contacted me and I went over.
There were no customers at the time.
It was, I think, around 1230 in the afternoon.
So, what Mr. Reuter stated, I think, is extremely important here.
So what Mr. Reuter stated, I think, is extremely important.
And I think just based upon that statement and what I've stated now, which I don't believe Mr. Reuter will contest, that the violation notice, and if I can share my screen real quickly, you'll see, states that there was an inspection.
and while there was an inspection of the lobby there was maybe a minute maybe an inspection of
the lobby may have been inspection of the outside of the building there was no inspection at the
time the violation notice was issued of the inside of the area in question and there was no inspection
while anybody was there to make the determination as to who the patrons were and where they came
from. So on its face, you have a violation notice that was issued without basis, without a true
inspection, and should therefore be dismissed on its face. In addition, Len was correct that
here we are looking at the definition of hotel with the key phrase being
providing food and may provide food and entertainment primarily to visitors and
tourists. If you look here at the violation notice, it says a use permit authorizing
non-accessory bar restaurant is required where only accessory food service to the hotel is
permitted. There is no reference to accessory food service in any of the permits. There's
reference in the provisos from the coordinating RCO in the area, the Center City Residence
Association. You'll see from my exhibits that food service was contemplated. However, it's
not this this we're not talking about accessory of accessory food service we're permitted and
this is very different than the analogy mr reuter used about a gym the definition of visitor
accommodation doesn't say this they may also provide a gym primarily to visitors and tourists
or to visitors and that you would be in violation it doesn't say you can you can provide it at all
But by saying primarily, it means not exclusively, clearly. And so here, on its face, the violation of this fails in multiple ways. And we would get into that. We submitted a legal memo that talks about the need. We have a vested right. We provided licenses. We relied on the licenses. We have a vested right.
We innocently relied on those permits, not licenses, permits, and now we're finding out that, you know, this area that called for 84 people where the hotel only has 38, that we can't serve anybody else other than who's there.
so without the inspector having actually been in at any time while people were there
the only people so aside from the violation notice i think with this case should just we
should be upheld just on what i brought up about the violation notes it's it's just it's defective
but if you want to get if we want to get into the definition of visitor accommodation again i don't
think there's any dispute what primarily means you know i have my merriam webster's up on my phone
And it talks about what, you know, for the most part, then it talks about what most is, is, you know, the majority, and majority is more than half.
And the only people that know how this space is used right now are my clients.
And we're prepared to present today information based upon hard statistical data that my clients gathered regarding their operations that not only show the breakdown of the whole hotel in terms of physical space, but the use of the very limited space, the 13% of the overall hotel area, where this area, this food and beverage and meeting and conference area is located.
And as you can see, on the weekends, that area, it's only 30% of the time that it all is open to anybody who's not primarily a visitor or a tourist.
My people, or my witnesses, will state that 24 hours a day that space is available and utilized by the hotel, 24 hours a day, 100% of the time.
but that during this window this very limited window 5 p.m to 2 a.m on weekends and 5 p.m to
12 a.m on weeknights Sunday nights that more than 50 percent of the people that come in are either
guests or tourists we're the only ones that know and I don't think that there's anybody that can
refute what they say and here again it's not like they're just going off the top of their head they
have hard evidence to support it. And so based upon, but for both of those reasons, we think
that without even having to present anything more in this case, the issues with the violation notice
that Mr. Reuter himself has confirmed is a basis for upholding this appeal.
has confirmed is a basis for upholding this this appeal but if we get into the case if that's not
enough for on its face to dismiss you know to dismiss this violation notice and uphold our
appeal right here and now without any evidence being other evidence aside than what we presented
or provided previously being presented to the board or any testimony we feel that there will
be testimony by the only people that know whether we're in compliance and we are in compliance with
the definition and that this establishment, this area of this portion of the hotel is in compliance
with the zoning permits that exists for the property. Thank you. Leonard, let me ask you
this. How low of a case do you think you'd put on? I think the city's case would be relatively,
I mean, the inspector's testimony really, I mean, if I were to call him, I would really just call
him to uh confirm the um authenticity of the violation notice that this is a a true copy of
the violation notice uh maybe not the not the one that mr orphanetes has marked up but you know
something like that but that's again that's already in the file it's what was actually appealed from
so uh and again i believe there are other there may be other witnesses um that the city could
call but again i think if i could just briefly respond to what mr orphanetes was saying we do
think that in fact uh first of all a person can get it because they are permitted to have food
service they can make their kitchen and seating area as big as they want and plenty of hotels
and motel maybe not motels but hotels have conference rooms and they do there are other
things that hotels do that would be open to the public that's fine uh we're only talking about
with food service here. So again, they can have, you know, so we're not going to dispute that
during the day when the bar is not actually operating as Franklin Mortgage, that there are
people that will be sitting down there. I don't, again, it's not clear whether they would, they're
actually eating, whether there is any kind of food or drink service at the time. But again,
that doesn't really matter. We're talking about, so we can, we don't have any problem. The building
permit that they obtained to renovate the property and to put in an occupancy of 84
persons at that bar kitchen area, yeah, they have a vested right to that.
We're not disputing that, but because it's not up to the plans examiner to make a determination
about how big your restaurant should be, but that being the case, as far as there not having
then bar patrons present at the time uh of that the bar is operating again it seems like there's
a kind of contradiction there in the argument so it's like well if there's really nobody there
during the day uh even though it is open to guests of the hotel uh and the only time that
there's really any number of people or any significant number of people at the location
is at night when it's operating as Franklin Mortgage, it kind of like doesn't really matter
that much. I mean, there's no question that the bar would not be open to, is primarily open to
guests during the day when the bar is not actually even operating. And as far as there not being
anybody there, L&I can and has issued violations for, say, a property being used as multifamily
um because we go and we look at the property and we can see uh we don't necessarily have to
see people uh going in and out of various apartments or whatever we can see that there
would be multiple mailboxes so let's go back how much time do you think you're going to need
i mean to put on the city's case probably a half hour uh i mean david yeah i would say
half an hour to 45 minutes so look look it's very late I think we're going to have to bring this
back um and I'll tell Lakeisha let's try to get this done as soon as possible right we'll bring
it back and we'll we'll finish it up okay sure we did it's just you know we haven't got to the
3 30 list yet so we've got a lot of people waiting and I just don't want to tie the whole place up
as we go back and forth with this okay that's fine all right we'll be in touch with you okay
would it be thanks i understand all right thank you i appreciate every your comments thanks okay
let's go back to sure do we now go back to number 12. i sure hope so mr levy
Mr. Levy, I'm sorry.
i'm sorry if you're in the audience can you wait
If you're in the audience, can you raise your hand, please?
I'm not sure if he's able to, but I did go ahead and promote him to panelists.
Okay, thank you.
Mr. Levy?
Mr. Levy?
Mr. Levy, you have to unmute yourself
Mr. Levy
Acacia, do you see him?
Yes, he's available
He just unmuted
Mr. Levy.
Mr. Levy, how do we look on our computer?
All right.
Let me see if I can do any of this.
So you would just open your documents first that you would like to share?
They're open.
And then hover around the bottom of the screen to that green share screen.
You got it.
All right. Is that shared?
No, we don't see the document. We just see the files on the screen.
You don't see the document. You just see the files.
I mean, I'm sorry. We don't see like the actual pictures or anything. We just see your files.
Probably going to have them.
Does that show?
No. So what you can do is stop sharing.
Stop sharing.
And then click the share screen.
And then it's going to show you on your Windows what screen you would like to share.
then click on the documents if i click window then uh the file opens up
and i hit share right yes
now okay the computer's processing again so so mr levy yeah no this this case was mark must be
heard and here's what we're going to do i'm going to continue it and then wait a minute wait a minute
okay so i i think what you have to do here is you've got to click on the different like for
instance the rcl the deed all these files you click so click on click on the first one zoning
hearing notice all righty zoning hearing notice yes how about that one and it looks like you have
to share yeah i think you have to open the document then share your screen
all right the share key vanished now it's back now it's vanished again all right mr levy this
happens every time mr chair so this is a must be heard don't put your mr levy just listen to me
pick your head up here so what we're going to do is this was mark must be heard yeah what i'm going
to do is we're going to continue this and then what i want you to do is to call the office
and they'll help you prepare for the next hearing is it okay yeah it's very generous chairman right
we have a we have a we have a group of people in there that their job is to help people and
they'll gladly help you get ready for this help me once before i i just don't know what i'm doing
wrong this time well but we'll we'll we'll find it we'll get it fixed for you okay thank you for
your patience all right is there any oh boy is there anyone in the audience from the 2 p.m list
i see no hands here we're gonna go we're gonna go to the the 3 30 list and we're gonna move as
quick as we can my name is bill bergman i will be chairing this meeting with me is carol tenary
our Vice Chair. Present Mr. Chair. And Ismail Shahid our Board Secretary.
Present Mr. Chairman. Also here is our Board Attorney Hillary Emerson and our ZBA hearing
Supervisor Lakeisha Dandy. Our virtual format be advised proceedings are being recorded
by participating in a knowledge agreement to be recorded. The video will be available by contacting
tonyasunkett at phil.gov. For the benefit of our court stenographer, we ask attorneys and witnesses
to identify themselves before testifying. If you are participating by phone, if you wish to testify,
press star 9 to raise your hand and star 6 to unmute. To enter an appearance statement, call
267-270-5548. Leave your email and the address of the property in question.
Leave your email and the address of the property in question.
And lastly, the question-answer button.
And lastly, the question-answer button on the screen is not for comments or testimony.
All comments should be directed to our Executive Director, Tanya Semple.
Let's look at what we have available on this afternoon list.
And first of all, I have number two, MI 2021-004833-2436 West Allegheny Avenue is a withdrawal.
That case is withdrawn.