SPOKANE, Wash – The
sudden closure of long-time Spokane restaurant CI Shenanigans left seemingly
everyone in shock; employees told KHQ they had no warning.
Apparently, neither
did the Spokane Public Facilities District, which has a lease with the
restaurant.
"I got a call over the
weekend that Shenanigans had closed, which very much surprised me for a number
of reasons," Spokane Public Facilities District CEO Kevin Twohig told KHQ. "For one, we have a lease with them until
January 31st, but also I have a banquet scheduled here I'll have to
move."
A sign on the door of
the restaurant says it closed because of the PFD's impending expansion of the
Spokane Convention Center – but construction isn't expected to begin until
spring or summer of 2013.
Twohig told KHQ the
PFD bought the restaurant in January of 2010 at the request of the restaurant
owners, because they knew they would eventually take over the space with the
expansion.
That expansion was
just approved by voters on the April 2012 ballot, and Twohig says he met with
the restaurant's owners in the last few weeks, but they gave no warning they
would close up shop early.
"Part of our long
range plan, our Vision 20/20 plan has always been to move onto this site, but we
had just - as recently as last month - talked about whether the lease was going
to end on January 31st, and we told them yes it was, and that was the
end of the conversation," Twohig added.
The lease with CI
Shenanigans is the only one the PFD has, according to Twohig, and a lawyer will
likely have to get involved to sort out the repercussions.
"I
have not heard from the owners, and I really don't know what the owners are
doing, so we'll go through that and see what we can figure out," he
said.
40 employees lost
their jobs essentially overnight, when the say three people from the corporate
office came into the Spokane restaurant Saturday evening, and announced it was
closing up right then and there.
Managers at the
Spokane restaurant referred KHQ to the corporate office in Lakewood, Washington,
for comment. Our calls were not
returned.
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