Number two, MI 2023-007-280-1384 Narragonset Street.
Darlene Treat is the attorney.
They're coming back in as a panelist.
Good afternoon, Commissioner Darlene Freed on behalf of the applicants.
Could you spell your name, please, just for the record?
Atunson Thomas, H-R-E-A-T-T.
I don't know why my video isn't on.
Were you a firm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Yes, I did.
We're going to need your video.
Yeah, I'm just saying.
Yeah, good.
So there's a letter of opposition from Safe Faith CDC and a letter of opposition from Councilperson Bass.
And you also have approximately 41 residents who have signed a petition.
Do you stipulate to the reading of the referral and its accuracy?
Why don't you please start your presentation?
I'm going to share my screen.
Good morning, Commissioners. I am Darlene Threatt. I'm here representing Mr. William
Campbell and Mr. Freeman Camper. I've submitted a package of exhibits. Can you see my screen,
sir? I'm just going to list the exhibits. I'm not going to go through them all. We have the
refusal, a tax clearance, a lease, property information, plans, pictures, community letter,
as well as proof of mailing and petitions. In my original submission, I submitted three
petitions. After that submission, and I updated it with the submission to the board, I submitted
them nine other um petitions uh from the community our commissioners my clients are b-boy bistro
they operate a food truck currently at stenton and narragansett a b-boy bistro would like to
move into a brick and mortar building at 1384 east narragansett i would note that this is a
referral and not a refuse at this time they would like to open up a restaurant
somebody's on the line
okay sorry council please proceed oh um they would like to open up a brick and mortar building at
1384 narragansett avenue they would like to have a take out restaurant there
commissioners here are is a copy of the tax clearance for that property
here's a copy of the commercial lease for that property
and commissioner here's a copy of the plans uh for the uh building uh this first page here
is just a site plan and it shows that this is a uh building on the corner of narragansett
and Stanton. There's a side entrance to the building here, which is actually on Narragansett
Street, and the building goes the length of Stanton here. I'm going to flip down to the,
there's also an exit at the far right-hand corner, as well as an entry at the far left-hand corner
on Narragansett. This exit here is on Stanton, and this is just kind of like a picture window there.
I'm going to scroll down a little further to the actual plans for the building.
I'm going to scroll down a little further to the actual plans for the building.
I'm going to enlarge them a little bit so we can see them a little better.
I'm just going to make it really big.
Basically, commissioners, we would like to have a takeout operation here.
You would enter the restaurant through the corner at Narragansett.
We have counter space along here.
we have a bathroom in the back we have some freezers this is an exit to the basement and
this would be an exit out to narragonset we do have the use of the basement according to the
lease and this is for storage only and we would also store our trash in the basement here until
trash day back behind the counter here of course it's not installed yet but this is where we would
put all of our cooking equipment, if approved by the board, up here is just the waiting area
for the patrons to wait for their takeout food. At this point in time, we did not have a
thought to use it as a sit-down restaurant, only a takeout restaurant. I'm going to show you some
pictures now. Here is the actual property. This is Stenton Avenue, the long length of the property.
the corner and the opening here is on Narragansett and this is where we posted the property on both
sides. I took some other photographs to just give you a general look of the area. Actually on Stenton
Street there it is a commercial area with a lot of traffic. A commissioner's next door on the other
side down on Stenton Avenue is a lot and I'm going to show you a picture of the lot. This is a lot in
question and there's been a lot of back and forth with this lot. And I think this is where most of
the problems with the community came. I'm going to put my clients on in the end, but my clients
are going to testify that they were under the impression that this was the landlord's lot and
that they were under the impression that they could use that lot according to him. They will
also testify that it's the landlord who fenced in the area and it's also the landlord who paid
this area, but my client will testify more to that. That's just a general area. That's across
the street on Stanton Avenue. There's a deli on the corner here. This is Narragansett Street.
That's across the street from the property. Across the street is a McDonald's,
and then there's a gas station. It's a highly traveled commercial area.
this is a picture of the actual food truck b-boy bistro that's located on stenton avenue now
my clients would like to get rid of the food truck and move into the brick and mortar building
which would probably alleviate some of the complaints outlined in the two or three letters
of opposition. This is the interior of the property currently. If approved, my clients
will come in and sit it out for their commercial takeout restaurant. I would like to say that this
restaurant is a seafood restaurant uh with fresh food uh daily fresh food brought in daily they
would like to operate from wednesday to sunday uh 11 p.m excuse me 11 a.m to 8 p.m they currently
and these are just other pictures of the inside of the space basically is for you to see
bathroom that's located in there. This is the current food truck that they've been operating
out of on Stanton Avenue. It's my understanding that they've been operating this food truck for
about a year. It's also my understanding that they have had some problems with L&I,
mainly that their initial license was not for a mobile food truck. It was just for a regular food
truck. It's my understanding that they applied for the license at L&I. They explained what they
were doing in this truck, and L&I gave them an improper license. Thereafter, my clients did go
back to L&I after learning that they had the improper license, and they did receive the proper
license for the mobile food truck, which I'll show you in a minute. These are just other pictures to
you how busy it is on that corner at Stanton and Narragansett. That's looking down Narragansett.
And this is a large picture of the truck. It's a fairly large truck on that corner, a b-boy bistro.
B-Boy Bistro.
Commissioners, here's the letters that I sent out to the community for the meeting.
I also hand delivered the flyers for this particular case to make sure that we could get a sufficient turnout and that everybody got the notice in a timely fashion.
I understand the mail is not that great in that neighborhood.
And here is a copy of the proof of mailing.
A commissioner's, I originally submitted three petitions with about 42 signatures thereafter.
I'm sorry, here's the license.
They did finally get the mobile food vending unit food service license.
Again, originally they did have the wrong vending license for that truck, but when they found out that they had the wrong license, they went in and got the proper license.
and I've also attached some additional petitions and all in all commissioners I would say we have
167 signatures on these petitions and if you look at the petitions closely there are varied
addresses on it but there are substantial amount of addresses from Narragansett and from Rittenhouse
and those are all our neighbors of the excuse me they all live in the vicinity of the food truck
as it's operating now uh commissioners i'd like to call my uh client mr william campbell for a
little testimony commissioner can you hear me yeah i can sure please please call can you raise your
hand please they have been allowed to speak good morning sir could you please state your name and
spell for the court stenographer yes my name is william campbell first name william w-i-l-l-i-a-m
campbell c-a-m-p-b-e-l-l or firm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth
Please proceed, counsel.
Mr. Campbell, do you currently operate a food truck named B-Boy Bistro at Stanton in Narragansett?
Yes, I do.
And how long have you been operating that truck?
It's been a year.
And January 17th was our first year, so just a little over a year.
And Mr. Campbell, when you when you originally started the food truck, is it correct that it was placed on 1985 Narragansett 1385?
Excuse me. I'm sorry. 1385 Narragansett. Yes. Rittenhouse. Sorry. Rittenhouse.
And Mr. Narragansett, who is the owner of 1384 Narragansett?
His name is Earl Ross. And did you have a conversation with Mr. Ross about 1385 Narragansett?
Yes. And Mr. Ross, excuse me, Mr. Campbell, 1385 Narragansett was paved and fenced in.
And was that done at the direction of Mr. Ross? Yes. And it was your understanding originally,
Mr. Ross owned that lot of 1385 East Narragansett? I'm sorry, correction. That's the lot that's on
1385 Rittenhouse, the building of Narragansett. So you referring to Rittenhouse? Yes, we were
under the impression that he was the owner of the lot. Yes. And you had operated your food truck
on that lot? Correct. And once you found out that he didn't own that property, did you remove the
food truck yes uh it took about a few months for us to try to figure it out um unfortunately i
didn't know in which way he was representing our our business apart from him being the owner of
the property and the so-called owner of the lot uh he kind of left a little bad taste in people
miles at the city council office and uh we just really want to express that yeah we had no
recollection of him not owning that lot so once ellen i did come out uh and they tried to figure
everything out once we they figured you know once they found out that we didn't own the lot
what that he didn't own a lot they told us that we would have to remove ourselves and we did so
immediately and uh mr campbell what did you do after you found out that you had the wrong
vending license for that truck uh so when ellen i came out and uh did some uh observing uh we were
told that we had the wrong license which was funny because we was like two months away from
having to renew the license so we never knew you know in those what 10 months uh that we had the
you know in those what 10 months uh that we had the wrong license so once she told us
wrong license. So once she told her
uh i forget the lady name but she worked for elanon she told us being that we were coming up
on um having to renew it she told us i can't hear him can you can you hear me
counsel can you hear me hold on counsel are you are you there
you're coming in and out darlene yeah it froze i think we're okay now i say my internet connection
is unstable today and it has been shaky mr campbell can you hear me yes i can can you
finish that once you found out that you had the incorrect license what did you do uh once she
told us to just wait until the license expired which was just a little under a month away and
once it expired, we renewed it and got the right license. Okay. Mr. Campbell, can you explain to
the board what type of food do you sell? So mostly we sell seafood. It's mostly pescatarian,
but we do offer some meat options as far as chicken and beef options as well. But we do
like rice bowls. It's from teriyaki, salmon fried rice to fried lobster sandwiches. A lot of things
that you would probably find in like a fine dining restaurant, but on wheels and more accessible and
local. And Mr. Campbell, how many persons do you employ currently? Seven. And can you tell us
whether or not your cooks or your employees certified in any way? So me and my partner,
which owns the business, we are certified serve safe. And we do have our leading cook,
which is also certified and serve safe that runs the truck.
Our commissioners, right now, that's all I have.
Questions from the board?
Questions or comments from our attorney, Hillary Amberson?
um miss three excuse me we had requested but did not yet receive a um executed lease
for your client miss emerson i did submit an executed lease i uploaded it uh when did you do
that maybe monday all right i will i will check again and i'll send you a copy right now okay
because we don't the copy we have on file is not signed so okay and let me just go down to
my package i think i substituted the executed lease on my package
yeah i'll send it to you um oh here it is there it is okay thank you so much
Can I hear what the RCO said again? What was the RCO's vote?
Nine opposed, one in support.
Letter of opposition, Faith CDC.
And can you speak to any of the opposition for the project?
I know you have petitions from the neighbors, but was there anything that stood out for the RCO's rejection?
of the plan? Yes, Ms. Graham, I did speak to Ms. Love, to be honest with you, in great detail.
And it seems that there was a problem with that truck parking there. It caused lines on the
corner, which interfered with the bus stop. And people were double parking to get to that truck.
But I would submit to you at this time that if, in fact, the business is allowed to move inside
to a brick and mortar structure, those problems that were created by the truck wouldn't be there
anymore. There wouldn't be any lines interfering with the bus stop. And there would be no parking
near or outside the truck. And frankly, we are requesting a referral here. And this property
is commercially zoned and is zoned for this type of use. The reason we're in front of the board is
because we like a takeout component to it, but we are asking to use this building in the way it was
designed to be used for commercial purposes. I would also submit that if it was a sit-down
restaurant, the parking situation would be increased. People would be in the neighborhood
a little longer, but since it is a takeout restaurant and it's fairly large, as you can
see from the plans, they can hold all their customers inside. Plus, the customers will have
a shorter time span in that area as opposed to if we were also asking for a sit-down restaurant.
And is the operator of the restaurant willing to work with the restaurant?
And is the operator of the restaurant willing to work with the community to, you know, address any other concerns if transferring from the truck to the restaurant?
They're definitely willing to work with the community.
Actually, I had canvassed that community myself when I was hired to take over this case.
And basically, most of the people in the community had good things to say about the truck.
The only thing that they said that was bad to me anyway is that the prices were too high.
But my clients and Mr. Freeman Camper is on the line also.
They're more than willing to work with the community.
They really want to try to have a more upscale restaurant in this location, you know, not the regular fast food, greasy, takeout Chinese stuff.
And they're trying to bring something to the community that's a little different, and it's a little healthier option for the community.
And I'm sure Mr. Campbell or Mr. Campbell are willing to answer any questions that you have, Ms. Graham, in that regard.
So my last question is, so if the restaurant is open, the food truck will no longer be parked at or near this location?
That's correct.
The food truck would be gone, but I will have to tell you that the food truck is in operation.
They're a very popular food truck in the city.
As a matter of fact, tonight the food truck would be in Point Breeze at Kenyatta Johnson's Night Watch Community Affair.
So they drive around.
They're community-oriented.
They started off a little shaky.