Seminoles, store owners settle lease dispute

The tenants settled their lawsuit, but the siblings said they can’t share details, because they signed a confidentiality agreement.

For interested observers, it’s like sitting down to a big feast, only to be ejected from the restaurant after the appetizer.

Or losing your cable signal right before the third act of your favorite show.

After pulling back the curtain last week on their battle with the Seminole tribe, Tamir Wershaw and Malka Livingston now say they’ve settled their lawsuit over the tribe’s eviction of their store, called ResortWear, from Seminole Paradise, the restaurant and retail complex at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood.

But the siblings said they can’t share any of the details, because they signed a confidentiality agreement as a condition of the settlement.

Cue the sound Pac Man makes after he’s been caught by a monster.

The siblings and the tribe settled their dispute in a mediation session on Monday, according to attorney Robert Stok. He’s not saying much either. “I would say the mediation was successful because the suit was settled,” Stok said. “I can’t give you details other than to say that typically, one of the reasons that parties settle is that they don’t want to admit liability, and they want to keep details confidential so no one can draw any conclusions from the amount of the settlement about the degree of liability being admitted.”

In their suit, the siblings said they took over another tenant’s 10-year lease in 2014 with the tribe’s blessing.

In 2016, with four years left on that lease, the tribe served eviction papers but offered no compensation for terminating the lease early, the suit charged.

Wershaw said in a March 21 interview that he would settle the suit, which originally sought more than $15,000 in damages, if the tribe would give them a space in the new complex.

Left unknown by the confidentiality clause is whether the owners received any money from the tribe, and if so, whether it compensates them for what they would have made if they remained at the site for the full lease term.

Also undisclosed was whether the siblings will get a space in the new complex.

“It’s very possible that after it’s finished, my client would move in there,” Stok said. “But I don’t know that they might not want to move in there. It’s possible they will establish their business in another location.”

All tenants are vacating the complex as the demolition project that began in late 2014 comes to an end, Stok said.

But what will replace it remains a mystery.

In February 2016, the tribe

MIKE STOCKER/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER Tamir Wershaw and sister Malka Livingston in their ResortWear shop at the Hard Rock Casino complex.