Fireside Lives To See Another Day In Court

An Annex restaurant’s bid to survive the pandemic survived another day in housing court, after a judge recognized the restaurant owner’s recent hospitalization as a valid excuse for presenting a tardy defense against a pending eviction.

State Superior Court Judge Claudio Baio issued that ruling Thursday during the latest virtual public hearing in the case 810 Woodward Avenue LLC v. Nical, Inc. D/B/A Fireside Restaurant.

Baio granted Fireside owner Matthew Martino’s motion to reopen a previous eviction ruling against him that has been filed by his landlord over multiple months of missed rent and other utility charges (totalling $54,000) at his popular now-shuttered Woodward Avenue restaurant during the coronavirus pandemic. (See here for a previous article about this case.)

The motion was granted after John Bolton, Martino’s attorney, submitted medical documentation to the court indicating that Martino was hospitalized multiple times last November, which is when the landlord’s attorney, David Schancupp, filed the initial eviction complaint.

“Quite frankly, the requirement [to grant the motion] is whether there was reasonable cause and given the medical reason … the court can’t find it unreasonable that the focus would be on his health issues while making some efforts…to do something about this matter,” Baio said.

“I think it was the right call,” Martino told the Independent after the hearing. ​“With the pandemic going on, everybody’s struggling. It doesn’t mean people are bad. It just means it’s a struggle.”

Martino said that he had Covid-19 earlier on in the pandemic. In November, he was hospitalized due to congestive heart failure and multiple infections, he said.

Now Baio has reopened the case for future hearings, the landlord and tenant must work together to schedule another time to virtually meet before the judge and talk about the unpaid rent that led to the eviction filing in the first place.

Martino said he’s optimistic that he and his landlord will be able to reach a deal through mediation that would allow Fireside to reopen soon.

“Hopefully, we’ll be able to…get back on track and reopen the place,” he said.

Martino’s landlord did not respond to a request for comment by the publication time of this article.