Nine Miracle Mile businesses shut down over code violations

STOCKTON — City officials took the extraordinary step Wednesday morning of shutting down nine Miracle Mile businesses, some of them local landmarks, after their Pacific Avenue landlord failed to make repairs despite years of warnings about fire and safety violations in the building.

Among the shuttered businesses at the two-story building on the 1800 block of Pacific Avenue were the Empresso Coffeehouse beneath the iconic Empire Theatre marquee, the Casa Flores and Centrale restaurants, a Realtor’s office and a beauty salon.

City officials provided documentation that they had been after building owner Christopher “Kit” Bennitt to make a laundry list of repairs since January 2012. They also produced an agreement with Bennitt, signed by him in August, to bring the nearly 31,000-square-foot building up to code.

But officials say Bennitt failed to follow through by his February deadline, and after several more months of waiting, the city finally acted Wednesday. David Kwong, Stockton’s director of community development, said it had become apparent Bennitt was not going to honor his agreement and that the city had to act.

“We (needed) to do so in order to avoid catastrophe or tragedy,” Kwong said.

Bennitt did not respond to a phone message Wednesday afternoon. Neither did his attorney, Max Steinheimer.

Peter Lemos, who manages code enforcement for the Stockton Police Department, said Bennitt owns other properties in the city and may face more trouble beyond Wednesday’s shutdown.

“We do have other cases with him that I’m aware of that we’re working,” Lemos said.

City officials arrived on the scene at 9 a.m. Wednesday to serve a “notice and order to vacate and cease and desist all operations” to owners of each of the nine businesses based in the Promenade Building, which dates to 1943. The business owners gathered with officials later in the morning at City Hall for a briefing.

“These are all family-run businesses,” said Empresso’s Vito Casciaro, standing on the sidewalk in front of the coffeehouse. “These are a lot of jobs, a lot of employees that are not prepared for this. Every business owner on this block would have done everything they can to stay here if they would have known.”

Luis Ortega, one of the proprietors of the Casa Flores, blamed Bennitt.

“It was really (irresponsible) of the owner,” Ortega said. “We all pay rent here. These businesses are all local businesses, family businesses. This is what they live off of, not only the owners but the workers.”

Andy Verduzco, a neighborhood resident, said he was a daily patron at Empresso.

“This place brings the Mile together,” Verduzco said. “It’s a meeting place for everybody.”

City officials said they could wait no longer for Bennitt to comply with orders to make the needed repairs at a building he had owned since buying it for $1.3 million in 2005.

During a media briefing Wednesday afternoon, they cited last year’s Ghost Ship fire in Oakland, a tragedy in which 36 died in a building that had been cited at least 10 times for code violations.

City officials said blame for the closure rested solely with Bennitt, with business owners the unfortunate victims who were caught in the middle.

Among the dozens of pages of violations listed on city documents dating back to Jan. 31, 2012, were inaccessible emergency exits and blocked exit pathways, multiple extension cords being used as permanent sources of electricity, exposed wiring in storage areas, unusable fire extinguishers, and even one space repurposed as a bedroom that did not “meet the minimum requirements as a bedroom.”

“As we worked with this property owner for over five years, we realized that he was noncompliant, he was nonresponsive and he was negligent in his efforts to maintain the building safety,” Deputy Fire Chief Matthew Duaime said.

Lemos added, “The Empire could have been a catastrophic event if a large event was going on.”

Code-enforcement action was the city’s highest-profile effort to bring a facility into compliance with safety regulations since last summer’s closure of south Stockton’s blighted New Grand Save Market.

The city went to court in that effort and convinced a judge to authorize code enforcers to seize the building on Airport Way and Ninth Street and place it under the control of a receiver. New Grand Save appears likely to reopen as an outlet for a national discount-store chain as soon as late this year.

In the shutdown, some or all of the nine businesses in Bennitt’s building ultimately could reopen if the structure is brought into compliance, officials said.

Ortega was saddened as he stood outside Casa Flores.

“For them to close the whole block down, it must have been something serious that should have been taken care of,” he said.