Press Release - Vestar Terminates Our Lease in Retaliation of Us Speaking Publicly About Their Years of Landlord Harassment, Business Sabotage, and Targeted Abuse
Weathered Waves, A Six Sailor Cider Bar, located downtown Salt Lake City at The Gateway. Vestar, Gateway owners, sabotage their tenant forcing them to cover their name as they attempt to suffocate Weathered Waves out of business for now reason at all
Since 2022, Vestar, the Arizona based, owners of The Gateway mall in downtown Salt Lake City, UT have engaged in predatory anti-business practices, committed deception and fraud to steal money from our businesses, Six Sailor Cider, LLC; The Utah Pantages Theater, LLC; and Weathered Waves, LLC; They have sabotaged our revenue strangling us from growing to meet the demands of our customers, and personally harassed and targeted our owner, former Salt Lake City Mayoral Candidate Michael Valentine for his political views and stances in support of human rights, Palestine, and anti-zionism. Their actions have cost our businesses at least $300,000 in lost revenue this year, delayed our expansion into our production facility, and set our businesses back several years from where they should be, amounting in astronomical damages to our bottom line, and all as we have now paid Vestar $60,000 as a tenant in the last two years to lease a space and run a business they are blocking us from running. Their abuse is well documented and marks a clear pattern of excessive landlord harassment and aggressive retaliation as we continue to fight back against their lease violations, business interference, and anti-business practices.
· Vestar has sabotaged us by blocking us from opening our business 100%, blocking us from fully opening after investing hundreds of thousands into the space to grow and run a successful business, as the lease demands of us
· Vestar has sabotaged us, violating the lease by not marketing our businesses as they are required to in the lease, including never implementing our Grand Media Opening Package, costing us thousands in fraudulent advertising costs we have paid to Vestar for nothing in return, especially the benefits of customers that advertising would bring
· Vestar has sabotaged our revenue by not allowing us to update our menu to sell food, costing us at least $300,000 in lost revenue since December 2023, even though our menu violates no exclusive rights of any other tenants at The Gateway and every other restaurant and bar here changes their menus regularly
· Vestar has sabotaged our revenue by not allowing us to sell beer, costing us tens of thousands of dollars, delaying lucrative collaborations between SIX SAILOR CIDER and other Utah breweries
· Vestar has harassed our owner Michael Valentine by forcing him to work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, by not allowing us to change our hours as he is currently the soul worker at the business, not allowing him a single day off, even though every business restricts their hours when they are short on staff
· Vestar has harassed our owner and business by repeatedly targeting us specifically, aggressively trying to push us out of business by orchestrating reasons to have us evicted while suffocating our businesses at every level, attempting to force us to abandon our lease early and vacate the property we are legally allowed to rent
· Vestar has sabotaged us by not allowing us to update our bar name and concept to “Weathered Waves”, forcing us to cover up signs we have already paid for, even though it is owned by the same parent company SIX SAILOR CIDER and is still the same brand, and even though they have let other tenants change their names and concepts recently, the bar “Bout Time” to “The Bruce” (April 2024) and “Italian Graffiti” to “Lupessa” (Sept 2024), clear proof of targeted bias and harassment towards us
· Vestar sabotages our business as they cater to complaints from the owners of “Hallpass” to move street festivals away from our business to the north side of The Gateway as we lose revenue and customers
· Vestar harasses us in conjunction with Marksman Security, using security to conduct daily reports on our business, harass our customers, our workers, our owner, while violating the lease as security is only to be used as a deterrent for crime, not to spy on and harass their own tenants. Vestar refuses to tell us how much we as tenants are paying towards these security costs. Additionally, Marksman Security illegally profiles people as being homeless, racially profiling, often running customers off the property
· Vestar sabotages our business by delaying our expansion to our production factory with an output of 25,000/gallons a month, roughly $1 million dollars a month in gross revenue, by sabotaging not just our bar, but our entire business, suffocating our revenue so we are unable to obtain SBA loans and other business financing
Vestar has never given a single argument for why they are sabotaging and harassing our businesses or why they won’t allow us to run our companies as needed.
Vestar now once again continues their harassment, intimidation, and retaliatory abuse of us and our businesses as they now violate their own 21 day stay issued September 18th via their attorney Shane Keppner, to then immediately terminate the lease on September 20th, two days later, knowing full well that we are switching legal representation, don’t currently have counsel, and are unable to respond or defend our businesses or our owner legally under the law of Utah, even though our owner Mr. Valentine owns 100% of all our companies.
“No further action may be initiated by Vestar against Defendants until after the expiration of the twenty-one day stay or upon further order of the Court.”
Obviously terminating the lease is the largest action they can possibly take against us.
The stay is in effect until October 9th, 2024 and yet they now attempt to subvert the justice system as they know they are violating their own lease and have no argument, legal or otherwise, for their targeted sabotage and harassment.
Vestar terminated the lease because we told them if they didn’t stop harassing us and sabotaging our businesses, attempting to silence us for speaking out against their abuse, we would speak to the media and the press. This was relayed to them in a call with their attorney Shane Keppner on September 19th, 2024 and September 20th, 2024. We present both recordings here and additionally share the complaint we have filed against Mr. Keppner with the Office of Professional Conduct for such unethical actions from a Utah attorney practicing under the Utah State Bar. Mr. Keppner also appears to be covering up the perjury committed by Vestar Manager Bryan Hill as he has yet to furnish documents he was ordered to deliver to court. This follows a long pattern of retaliation and landlord abuse against us by Vestar
As mentioned, Vestar has sabotaged our revenue, costing us $300,000 in lost food sales this year alone even though our menu changes violate no exclusive agreements. They have systematically attacked our revenue so they have an excuse to evict us from the premises and so we don’t have the financial means to fully defend ourselves through the justice system
Vestar continues to have no argument, sound or otherwise, in court or out as to why they won’t allow our business to update our bar’s name to “Weathered Waves”, allow us to change our hours, to change our menu, to sell beer, and to fully open our business 100%. Their biased sabotage is even more evident as other tenants are fully allowed and celebrated to make the same changes that we ask for:
• “Bout Time” changing their name to “The Bruce” April 2024, changing their menu and entire business concept
• “Italian Graffiti” to change their name to “Lupessa” September 2024, menu, and business concept
• “Hallpass” to change entire restaurants and food court concepts anytime their business concepts are no longer working
This bias goes so far as to allowing street festivals on only one side of The Gateway catering to complaints from the owners of “Hallpass” to the entire detriment of all tenants on the south side of the shopping mall, directly costing us sales and revenue.
They continue to violate the entire Covenant of Good Faith and Fair Dealing of our mutual contract, taking now over $60,000 in rent from us since 2022, while continuing to fail to let us run and operate our business as the lease demands of us, blocking us from opening our business fully to its entire potential:
“Landlord and Tenant acknowledge that the Shopping Center is an interdependent enterprise and that the realization of the benefits of this Lease, both to Landlord and Tenant, are dependent upon Tenant creating and maintaining a successful and profitable retail operation in the Premises. Landlord and Tenant further acknowledge that the character and quality of Tenant’s operation and of the Shopping Center will be enhanced by Tenant’s use of its best efforts to establish a successful character and image.”
-Article 7a, Article 13a, Article 16a, Article 16c,
They have bled our business dry, failing to advertise and market our companies as they are required to do in the lease (Article 29c) even though they have taken thousands of dollars from us to do so, allowing us to spend tens of thousands of dollars to buildout the space, invest in architectural plans for a restaurant and bar, use our entire Tenant Improvement funds to invest in a grease trap and health department approved water heater for food service, to then block our menu and our business from launching to 100% for no reason as our menu violates no exclusive rights of any other tenants. Bryan Hill, Gateway’s Manger even incentivized us on saying “Build out your restaurant, and we’ll see about building above your space and leasing other units for expansion”.
Vestar improperly uses Marksman Security to write up daily reports to harass us, to “make sure tenants are following policies” even though this behavior directly violates the lease and security’s use of being “deterrent in nature”. Spying and harassing their own tenants is not “deterring crime” by any stretch of the imagination. Marksman Security has long harassed our customers, our owner, and all patrons at The Gateway, profiling them illegally as homeless people, often running our customers off the property.
Their full motivations and intentions are clear: to unjustly target and harass our owner personally, forcing us to not update business hours when Michael Valentine is currently the business’s only worker, forcing him to work 12 hours a day/7 day a week, to exhaust him both financially, physically, and emotionally, to suffocate his businesses intentionally, against the terms of the lease, against their own financial interests, to push us from our space early, to manufacture and orchestrate us out of business simply because they feel like it, from repaying our debts to our investors, our vendors, suppliers, and partners, from recouping the hundreds of thousands of dollars we have invested into our businesses at The Gateway to the mutual benefit of Vestar itself and then to attempt to silence and evict us when we fight back.
We won’t allow Vestar’s actions of abuse, harassment, and retaliation to continue any further. We demand the comments of perjury by Vestar’s Manager Bryan Hill before court during the evidentiary hearing that took place August 8th, 2024, to be fully vetted and held to account. We will bring justice to the constructive eviction against our companies that Vestar has orchestrated as they continue to attempt to run their own tenant out of business through extreme predatory, anti-business harassment, gross lease violations, sabotage, and interference. We will not be intimidated by Vestar, their attorneys, or their agents and we will not be bullied into silence from speaking openly to the public of their years of abuse they have inflicted upon our businesses and our owner, Michael Valentine.
We have additionally launched a crowdfunding campaign to assist with legal fees as seek justice.
https://www.gofundme.com/f/fmm9hf
All Press Release Documents Can Be Found Below:
