The lawsuit filed against the City of Greensboro by Drew Brown of Greensboro Law Center on behalf of the Greensboro Entertainment Group LLC and N Club LLC owned by Rocky Scarfone alleges that the 2018 settlement agreement has been breached.
The settlement agreement ended a lawsuit Scarfone had filed against the city in 2018 over existing easement rights to the back of the N Club.
The settlement agreement signed by both parties granted access to the back of the N Club during construction of the city parking deck and grants the N Club a permanent shared easement from East Market Street to the N Club at 117 S. Elm St., once the construction is complete.
According to the lawsuit, the city has breached the portion of the settlement agreement that grants access to the N Club during construction and will violate the terms of the permanent shared easement once construction is complete.
The lawsuit states, “The extent of the breach includes building the parking garage literally and directly in the easement even after being told of the breach multiple times since December 2020.”
According to the settlement agreement, once the construction is complete, “the Shared Access Easement will be widened so that it is no less than nineteen (19) feet in width at the intersection of the Shared Access Easement with E. Market St., and shall extend approximately two hundred and twenty (220) feet long from the Shared Access Easement entrance on East Market Street to the easement terminus behind 117 South Elm Street (the “New Shared Access Easement”).”
Measurements done by a nonprofessional with a balky 25-foot tape measure indicated the distance between the city parking deck and 101 S. Elm Street at the entrance to the easement was a little over 19 feet.
However, as part of the parking deck, the city is reportedly constructing a pedestrian bridge from 101 S. Elm St. to the new parking deck and the steel beams supporting that bridge in the interior of the easement reduce the width of the easement to a little more than 15 feet.
During construction, the temporary parking easement, according to the settlement agreement, will be 15 feet wide with the contractor allowed to encroach one foot into the easement.
the sentence containing ‘ . . . literally & directly . . .’ is meaningless.
It sounds to me that Scarfone is trying to make his living off of suing the city that you and I pay taxes to… which means he’s trying to extort money from us. It’s no secret that Scarfone has an (allegedly) sketchy past and has run virtually every business he’s ever been associated with into the ground or into bankruptcy. Maybe you should stop supporting this clown Rhino and start highlighting legitimate business men that have the best interests of Greensboro at heart.
Mr Scarfone is a legitimate business man pays a lot of taxes in the city and county. No matter what’s thought about his past or present if he and the city entered into a contract the city should honor it if they don’t he should and has the right to sue as you or I do. Maybe the city should hire better attorneys to review their contracts then they could stay out of the Rhino headlines and court.
He had a business that was viable pre-pandemic which relied upon access to the back of the building to bring in big acts. He had a legitimate beef with the city, and the negotiation of the easement should have been the end of it. The city has not lived up to its end of the bargain. This city has proven many times over years that they do not care about existing businesses. If I don my tinfoil hat, I wonder if they were concerned about competition for Tanger Center.
No one will get rich from suing over a settlement violation.