CAPITOLA BAR AND GRILL SET TO CLOSE THIS MONTH
CAPITOLA >> A sports bar along the Capitola Esplanade will be closing this month amid a years-long feud between the business owners, the landlord and his son.
After almost two years of conflict that has escalated into the courtroom, Capitola Bar and Grill owners Michelle and Lasalle Strong announced in a Facebook post earlier this month that the bar will close at the end of January due to the “constant harassment and intimidation from the landlord and his son” that has created “an unsafe environment for our family.” Michelle confirmed via email Friday that the restaurant will close Jan. 17.
The restaurant and bar, which opened in the summer of 2021, is at 231 Esplanade No. 102 in Capitola Village and features a view of the iconic Capitola Wharf and local coastline. It is the last in a row of businesses along the esplanade and sits right where the road meets the bridge at Stockton Avenue.
But those views have also turned frightening at times. The beachfront businesses in Capitola made national headlines early last year when a massive winter storm caused widespread damage and set off a months-long recovery effort. Another round of storms rolled through the area in December, but most of the businesses were spared extensive damage and reopened their doors quickly.
The unit where the bar and grill is located is also a mixed-use structure with two more businesses and several residential apartments. It is owned by Steve Yates of La Serena Properties whose son, Ryan, lives in the apartment above.
Music issue
The issues in question date back approximately to the summer of 2022, when Yates contacted Capitola police about excessive noise levels from live music at the bar and grill.
The Strongs argued that they had a permit from the city and the music was a key draw for their business, while Yates said the music was a violation of the lease and disturbed the residents renting from him in the same building.
The parties went to court to address the issue with a final ruling in Yates' favor.
The city, after conducting its own investigation into the permit, determined that a noise permit had previously been issued to the Strongs in error, without written authorization by Yates. After an appeals process, the Capitola City Council ultimately upheld the decision to deny a noise permit for the bar at a meeting last June.
Bitter dispute
But while the issue played out, the relationship between the two parties grew more contentious, with each sharing public accusations of harassment and intimidation tactics.
“We're choosing to leave to save our sanity,” Lasalle told the Sentinel, “from fighting and spending money over nothing.”
The Strongs said Yates has hurled serious and untrue accusations about them in complaints to local authorities, which they have posted links to on their business website. They also claim Ryan, the son, has yelled at their staff, posted defamatory statements about them on social media and stomped on the ceiling of the restaurant.
Steve Yates flatly denies any accusations of harassment, saying he's simply carrying out basic functions as the landlord and all the disputes in court so far have come out in his favor.
“There's no way they can point to anything that I've harassed them about,” said Yates, who has owned the building since 2002. “It's nothing more than `We failed. We tried a business here in Santa Cruz, we didn't make it work. Who do we blame it on?' No one has done anything to them.”
Similarly, Ryan Yates, who lives in the apartment with his fiancée and four young children, said he shared complaints due to music that he regularly measured at 100-110 decibels in his home in the early morning hours sounding like “a subway with a freight train going past you.”
“If anything, the victim and offender role reversal is like something I've never seen before,” he said, claiming that he's had several encounters with Lasalle that included verbal and physical intimidation and threats.
Ryan said, and Steve Yates shared a copy with the Sentinel, that there is a temporary restraining order issued Jan. 8 by the Santa Cruz County Superior Court temporarily restraining Lasalle against Ryan and his family until at least Jan. 23.
Lasalle said he also had a temporary restraining order against Ryan that ended when previous litigation began.
The Strongs have also suggested that Yates' actions are racially motivated, claiming the music issues surfaced only weeks after Yates met Lasalle, who is Black, in person for the first time in April 2022.
“At first he (Yates) blamed it on the music. It really wasn't about the music,” said Michelle. “As soon as the music stopped he found another reason to give us a default.”
The Strongs submitted a complaint in late 2022 to the Santa Cruz County branch of the NAACP who reached out to Steve Yates to address the complaint. Yates told the Sentinel he spoke with an NAACP representative for three hours and that he fully participated in mediation efforts.
At least one member of the local NAACP branch, Vice President Don Williams, attended the June permit appeal at the city council chambers. Williams said “Capitola has a history of not treating people right” adding that Capitola Bar and Grill is the only Black-owned business he's been aware of in the city in his decades of living in the county. “Can we do better? … I know we can. I believe it.”
Yates called allegations from the Strongs that he would discriminate based on race “absurd” and “offensive.”
“I've got two grandchildren who are African American. I'm not going to plead my case on whether I'm racist or not,” he said.
Meanwhile, the legal fees have mounted for all, with both the Strongs and Yates saying they have spent more than $100,000.
Yates said the Strongs' lease ended in February, but have remained as the two parties battled in court about whether it should be extended. Yates said a preliminary hearing came in his favor but a follow-up judgment is possible in the coming weeks.
The Strongs said, after wrestling with the decision of what to do next for a year, they are left in debt and unsure of what comes next.
“We don't have anything else to fall back on financially as far as our savings,” said Michelle. “Now we go into going back to work and finding employment and figuring out what our next steps are.”