Ep.137 Lasalle & Michelle Strong: Save Capitola Bar & Grill from an Unjust Eviction

About
What if the business you've worked so hard to build faces the threat of being torn down by racial discrimination and power dynamics? This is the lived reality of Michelle and Lasalle Strong, owners of Capitola Bar & Grill, who found themselves embroiled in a tense standoff with a hostile, possibly racist, landlord.

Throughout this episode, you'll walk a mile in their shoes, experiencing their trials and tribulations, from the hurdles of starting a business to the struggle of maintaining it amidst racially tinged landlord disputes.

The Strongs share the raw truth about the power dynamics that overshadow their journey, from their landlord's attempts to default their lease to the bureaucratic difficulties in proving racism.

As we journey deeper into their compelling narrative, we also examine the broader societal issues at play. We challenge the norms established by patriarchal society and racial biases, questioning the entitlement to wealth and success.

We also discuss the role of corporate giants like Verizon in supporting financial bigotry and the importance of community-driven change.

But it's not all about struggle and strife. Amidst these tumultuous times, the Strongs have managed to launch a culinary adventure - the Firehouse Pizza Company.

Stand with us against individuals who threaten to dismantle progress towards unity and inclusivity. Be inspired by Michelle and Lasalle's resilience, and let their story fuel your desire to spark change. After all, every voice can make a difference, and yours could be the one that tips the scales towards a more equitable future.

Find The Strongs
https://capitolabarandgrill.com/save-capitola-bar-%26-grill
Instagram.com/capitolabarandgrill

Ignite Nexus
Consulting, life & executive coaching for organizations & individuals. Start the journey today!

Everyone's Music School
Creating positive and lasting change in people's lives with music!

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Transcript

Thomas: 0:11

Welcome back to Speak for Change podcast. I'm your host, Thomas Sage-Pedersen. Our mission is to inspire and create positive and lasting change in our local and global communities. We broadcast from the Tannery Art Center in Santa Cruz, California. I hope you enjoy the episode of Speak for Change podcast. Have a beautiful and impactful day. Welcome to today's episode.

Thomas: 0:40

Today we're diving into a deeply relevant, impressive conversation. I sat down with Michelle and Lacell Strong to dive into the current state of their business, Capital Barn Grow, and explore the significance behind their story and their current experiences. Through this story, we aim to spark crucial dialogues about racism, power dynamics and the need for diversity and understanding in our communities. And, on a personal note, this discussion extends into the broader context of our changing society, where the rapid growth of the rental market and the investment of billionaires in real estate dedicated to renting highlight the urgency to tackle the critical issues surrounding tenant protections from predatory practices and the role of government and community in driving positive change. So join us as we hear the strong story of being victim to a hostile landlord with racist overtones. Hope you enjoy this episode and hope it inspires you to change. Welcome to Speak for Change podcast. I want to have you on.

Lasalle: 2:08

Thank you Good morning.

Thomas: 2:11

So you know we met up because you know Michelle reached out to me talking about and to be honest I was just I'm so busy sometimes I just kind of like skim things really fast you know, and I was like okay, there's some problem, you know, with Capitola Bar and Grill.

Thomas: 2:28

what's going on, you know, and we finally scheduled this meeting and it becomes like this bigger issue, right, and I'm like, wow, that's amazing that there's racism here in Capitola that's affecting your business. But before we get out to all that, I kind of want to just know more about you guys, because when I was talking to you the other day, you guys are you guys are like pretty successful business owners. You know that's awesome. Can you tell us more about the businesses you run and why you're in Capitola?

Lasalle: 3:01

Yeah, a lot of people like always, the questions I always get asked is what led you in there? Because I don't. I guess I don't look like a business owner or or like a chef or something like that you look like a business owner.

Lasalle: 3:16

I think I'm taking on that role now. I hope so, but but I get it, you know, like no, I started out I was in Fresno. I went to the Academy, had this really big interest in getting on Fresno PD, started doing all my intern stuff, and then there was another job that I used to watch on TV is a lot, you know and I was like I want to do that and I finally got the call. So I changed directions and went that way and 20 years later, you know, I was a bounty hunter and got to see the world and got to see so many different aspects of the law, the way it works in different cities and different high crime areas, and you were many hats and dealing with people who are running, you know. So I was really intrigued. So I was kind of a no brainer why I stayed so long. And then, you know, I just realized that I was getting older and at some point I wasn't going to be able to run or jump that fence or, you know, travel.

Michelle: 4:15

We went through a few fences. Yeah, that was a sign.

Lasalle: 4:19

A few injuries. You know things like that. So I like to cook. I like to cook. I've always nominated to cook in the family events and I really took a big love for it. And I think you know my mother for doing that because you know I have five, five sisters and myself. You know I just was the only boy and the youngest. So my mom felt like she needed to teach me those things so that, just in case I didn't have a wife or anything like that, that I'd be able to do it myself. So I thank her for that.

Michelle: 4:51

Then the idea of hospitality right, lasalle loves to cook, we love to entertain. I have experience in business management Also with hospitality throughout the years. So we really decided we wanted to create a place that we like to go to that's live music, friends, cocktails, great food, great atmosphere, great servers. And the dream started small with okay, let's start a taco truck. And I didn't think that that was going to be progressive enough for our lifestyles and what we had to contribute and what it could bring back to us. Then we started looking for an actual location. Yeah, about six months later we found a location in Martinez, california. Negotiated that deal for about a year, got the price where we wanted it. Things worked out Boom. The next day we were open. So then COVID hit.

Lasalle: 5:57

Yeah, and that was about eight months, about six months into it. Yeah, somewhere around there.

Michelle: 6:02

COVID hit and it was great because LaSalle got a jumpstart into the industry.

Thomas: 6:07

Yeah.

Michelle: 6:08

Basically got thrown in the swimming pool, right.

Thomas: 6:11

Didn't know how to swim.

Michelle: 6:12

And then now he's there I'm there front of the house, he's taking care of back of the house and friends and family came, people served, ran food for us, we had cooks in the kitchen and we had a huge patio in Martinez. So that was a blessing. And then slowly we were able to start bringing the live music again. Covid started calming down a bit, but we were able to really get in the business and make it our own.

Lasalle: 6:44

The main thing for us. We really we kept all the employees. Some moved on, but we kept most of the employees. We felt really bad for them because we had a business. Yeah, we were going through some heartaches, but we would probably survive a lot quicker than they would. So we divvied up the food for them and then we called a lot of them back once we figured out a plan on how to be open. So we had to re-change the menu to things that were to go items and then it just kind of stayed that way.

Lasalle: 7:16

Because, we were doing really cool dishes and things like that. But then it just kind of stayed with burgers and fries and pub stuff, Because it paired really well, because we have 21 taps over there. Craft beers.

Michelle: 7:29

That specialty was craft beer. Martinez is a good place to have. There's about three or four breweries down there and we would support the local breweries. We always wanted to do even Northern California within the 22 taps we try to stay really close to home with that? Yes, and it wasn't even.

Lasalle: 7:48

We didn't even have a liquor license then. So those were all the things we had time to think about. How we're going to run our strategy. So then we applied and we got the full liquor. We went through the lottery and then it was a game changer, as things slowly started to reopen.

Michelle: 8:07

We always knew we wanted to expand. We started looking in Martinez area, Contra Costa. Nothing was coming to the plate. That was really something we could negotiate with. At the time. It was Father's Day. Our daughter was going on a vacation. So I asked Lissalle, what do you want to do? And he chose Capitola. This is somewhere we always go for fun. I mean, we sneak away here at least once a month. So that was his choice. We were at the wharf house enjoying music and enjoying our friends.

Thomas: 8:43

And.

Michelle: 8:43

I said, hey, there's a place on the Esplanade for sale. Do you want to look at it?

Lasalle: 8:50

I shouldn't only answer. I didn't believe her. I was like, is that some mistake? Is that like old or something? Because I was just trying to figure out, scratching my head, more or less scratching my head because I didn't know, like, was it Sam Bar or was it? These places are like staples. What went so bad that that's places for sale now? Yeah, seriously. But when we found out what it was, it's like it's a place we walk by all the time.

Michelle: 9:20

We had no idea what it was. We really didn't know what it was and what the interior looked like. So we set up a meeting. It was a Sunday, it was Father's Day 2021. And the broker got back to us really fast and he said someone's available tomorrow to meet with you and give you a walk through, and everything just kind of fell into place at that point and we decided okay, let's go through the motions. This is the next step for us.

Lasalle: 9:48

Yeah, and we did. We found out that it was a sub lease, so we ended up working with Zeldas to get the paperwork pushed through, and with our broker and her, and I say, how long did it take? It was really quick.

Michelle: 10:09

Well, so we negotiated the deal for about two weeks. We got to a point where we were both happy with what we were going to move forward with on the sale price and we were going to be transferring their lease to us, and then we agreed on a price. Then we sent everything to the landlord at that point and within the day we were approved.

Michelle: 10:35

This is all online paperwork, here's our credit scores, here's our bank statements, here's our history and our business plan. When we found love with the spot was it's got that window right on the Esplanade and the sound. I love live music and we thought the only way we're going to get people to notice us in this location is have the band right here. They leave the wharf house and we have our band startup and that was our gimmick. That was our gimmick to get the locals back and the tourists. They're just going for the next newest thing that's out here. It's going to keep their attention. So we knew that was going to be our grab.

Lasalle: 11:20

I mean it was kind of a no brainer there because the wharf house went from one to four 30 ish. You know, sometimes five the band is really good and they asked them to stay a little later. But from five to nine there was a long lag time where people got tired and we did sometimes and we didn't come back. So I was like this is great, because now we took over the five to eight spot eight to eight, 30. And then they went over to the sand bar. Those are the people that can last, or whatever.

Lasalle: 11:53

They're not done after the wharf house, but they get a couple more hours in and they eat and then they go home. So it worked out perfect and we were very successful with it, and I brought in a lot of bands because I made a lot of connections from the first restaurant in Martinez. So what I was doing was I was bringing some some new life over here as well, because, you know, you got the bands that circulate and what I was hearing was yeah, I didn't want to go today.

Thomas: 12:19

I saw them last week or you know so which the bands are good.

Lasalle: 12:24

But they were getting tired of that, so I was bringing some different bands down from over there here.

Michelle: 12:29

So the East Bay bands would come here and the Coastal bands started going to Martinez. And so we had given life to both restaurants, with different bands going back and forth.

Thomas: 12:42

What a great community strategy, you know, like using your restaurants in like completely different demographics, right, and then having having a straight connection for these musicians. As a musician myself, you know like I'm, that's like the dream, like you make a connection and our, the our customers are just like us.

Michelle: 13:03

They love live music. They love the going there. The bartenders know your name, know your drink. They love when we change up the menu with new food items. So when you change up a new band and they know the South book them, they're thinking this is a good band, right?

Thomas: 13:20

So I'm going to check this out you guys need to like music management company inside Maybe.

Michelle: 13:28

He was doing it, he had his three calendar books and he was booking bands and that's. You know, he had a highlighter in his pen and he knew exactly what's going on, and and we I update the website, and you know, I mean it's a method and it's it's a constant relationship as well, right, so that's how we got through COVID and that's how we continue to be successful after COVID. Yeah is bringing the crowds out there.

Thomas: 13:56

What a creative. I mean, like it's so funny, COVID. I mean it, you know. Obviously it was horrific, COVID, you know, but it also gave a lot of businesses the opportunity to be very creative with their approach.

Thomas: 14:09

You know it sounds like you guys landed on your feet. Yeah, it's not more, and that is just inspiring. So I'm there's a lot of questions I have, but I'm not going to. I think we should have another podcast to talk about those things I'm like. So how long has this been happening? You were a bounty hunter, like you know like there's so many things that we could go about.

Thomas: 14:30

But you know, unfortunately the main reason we're here is because of this kind of situation with your landlord. And you know, when I first heard it I was like wow, that's like it's really disheartening. And so I was wondering if, you know, one of you could, or both of you could, just kind of tell the story of like what, what started all this? You know what started all?

Lasalle: 14:55

this I can kind of start because it kind of started with me. Everything, like she said was, went very smooth. We were excited. You know, we we were so excited that when we got the apartment next door, that came with it. So we used the room as storage. That's a part of the deal and we were going to use the apartment side of it for, you know, like staying for the weekend and getting things done. Well, we got so excited. I ended up selling my house over in the Bay Area and we found a house here and I was like this is how much I'm excited.

Michelle: 15:31

You know that I really want to be here and we made them move.

Lasalle: 15:35

Yeah, we made them move and we just was operating pretty smoothly. You know we had a few challenges with our kitchen and hiring people. It was really challenging because no one wanted to come back to work and if they did it was just, you know, to make a little change or maybe they had to get a job or something. Then we were, you know, we interviewed and we were hiring quick because, we didn't want to lose.

Lasalle: 16:00

So, you know, there was a point where I've gotten rid of the whole kitchen because they were just not, you know, understanding what we needed to do to be successful. And then we finally landed some good employees and then things started taking off and I'd say about a year, eight months, eight months to a year I mean it's close to a year, right.

Thomas: 16:20

Eight months is like three months to a year To me it's, and our restaurant time, that's two years.

Lasalle: 16:27

But yeah. So one day I was coming to work, I was bringing some supplies and I used the back area and I noticed a gentleman working on the elevator, which was an issue, you know. When we first moved in we were warned by it, by other restaurants nearby, and saying, yeah, he doesn't fix this and doesn't fix that. So I was prepared to see someone you know, to ask him. You know who or what company you're with, right, and he's like he had some small talk and he said, well, I'm the owner of the building and I was like oh okay, nice to meet you.

Lasalle: 17:01

I'm LaSalle, you know. Finally we get to meet. And he's like yeah you know, told me his name Steve, and the conversation went on a little bit about the elevator and then where he's from. He told me he lived in Hawaii but he has a house over here in the hills that he can see as far as Russia. And I didn't understand the, the, the knowledge of that, but I just kind of said okay.

Lasalle: 17:28

So after that he asked me to distribute some keys because he was locking the doors to all the other restaurants and said it looked like a you know trustworthy guy, could you do that? And I said sure. So I did it and moved on and we, um, I told Michelle, yeah, I just met the owner and she's like oh really. And I said yeah, she was like I was he's an older guy.

Lasalle: 17:49

It was a little weird when he said a couple of things, but seemed okay, you know, and um, so we went out of town. Um, I forgot what it was for. But uh, I get a call from my supervisor that was running the restaurant at that time and said that but the most important thing of that first initial meeting was Steve Yates, the landlord. Yes.

Michelle: 18:10

First meeting you in person, right?

Lasalle: 18:13

Yes, and so, oh yeah, I left out a little element there. He asked me what I did in return and I said, yeah, he asked me if I was a cook and I said no, I'm, I'm the owner. And he was just kind of like, oh, um, I don't know, can't say he looked shocked. But there was a pause and then, like you know, he was thinking and I just thought it was normal. And then we moved on, um, and back to the part where I said we went out of town and we were gone, and then my manager called me and said, hey, some guy came and he was pretty, you know, upset, came in here, just stormed in and started yelling and um, saying that the music is too loud, and we were like, okay, well, who is the guy? And words he goes, he's a guy upstairs. And Michelle said Ryan, because she met him. Yeah, and she said, you know, she was going to meet me and the father, uh, cause he works on the war, uh, at the uh boardwalk.

Thomas: 19:08

Right.

Lasalle: 19:08

And my wife had a decent conversation with him and she told him hey, if there's any noise, let us know, we'll fix it.

Michelle: 19:16

He introduced himself as the landlord's son, cause I had capitol, a bar and grill on my shirt Right and he said, oh, I live above that place. And I said, oh, okay, I'm the owner. And I introduced myself and he explained who he was and I said let us know if the music ever becomes loud for you. And he said I'm not even worried about it, I just want you guys to make money. And I said, okay, great, you know, let us know. Thank you. And so that was a quick interaction.

Thomas: 19:44

So you guys were already playing live music, doing all this stuff for eight months, right, right, and no complaints, no violations nothing prior to that when we first started we had from the city a minor uh license to play music.

Lasalle: 20:03

Yeah and um and that's 2021.

Michelle: 20:06

Yes, we had a permit.

Lasalle: 20:08

Then the next year she said since you're we kind of grandfathered in, she goes, I'll just sign it over again and next year we'll get you the major license, if you want. So we applied and we got the major license, no problems. No, issues whatsoever. So now we can go later. But we didn't decide to not go later because later was basically um interfering and I didn't want to do that.

Michelle: 20:32

You know, I was like.

Lasalle: 20:33

I wanted to keep the role that we had where it starts one to four, 30, five, 30 to eight, nine to 11 or 12, at the sandbar Right.

Thomas: 20:42

So it's like kind of creating an ecosystem Right so you were thinking about the capital village kind of like how you can like collaborate almost right with yeah, and it's not to compete, it's to add and keep the locals and like I, said the tourists, if they have somewhere to go, they're not going to go and leave the village, they're going to go the next spot and support. And so I'm I'm curious about, like, the nuance of this situation, like did the landlord show any kind of hostility, like at your initial meeting?

Lasalle: 21:14

No, Like your first time meeting in person after being eight months in. No, he didn't, he was just kind of weird and I've still never have officially met him.

Michelle: 21:23

I've never shook his hand. I never said hello. You know, I'm Michelle strong. So that was the only somewhat meeting that he had with Lissalle.

Thomas: 21:33

And then how long after that meeting did his?

Lasalle: 21:36

did the sun start coming in complaining A week, oh, my gosh Like a week, you know, because we went out of town and then we, you know, I got the call and before I even came, uh, returned to the restaurant. I talked to him on the phone because he left his phone number and so when I call him, I told him I was and right away it just leaned in on me. It's like you need to stop music, and not stop music Now. It's too loud, it is unbearable to live here. And I was like, okay, hold on you know, what do you mean?

Lasalle: 22:06

You know? And I said well, you know it is a restaurant and I have, you know, licenses and things like that. I said, but it doesn't mean that I'm not willing to work with you. I said you know from times, dates or soundproofing, or if I need to pay to have your place soundproofed and things like that. I was very open with what we can do and I said but what I'm not going to do is just stop music because I was doing what I was supposed to do. Yeah, you know, I'm downtown. I applied, I have the police. I told the police what can I do.

Lasalle: 22:36

They gave me suggestions and I followed everything to a tee and he said, well, you're going to stop music anyway. And I was like, well, you know that's not going to happen, but if you want to think about it and come back with me with some suggestions, I'm, you know, I'm all ears. And he was like we'll see about that and he just hung up on me.

Thomas: 22:56

He hung up the phone and that was the son.

Lasalle: 22:58

That was the son.

Michelle: 22:59

That was the son and he also. From what I recall, he ended the conversation with you. Do not want to go to war with him.

Lasalle: 23:06

Yeah, he did say that.

Michelle: 23:08

And I was explaining this conversation to me and I'm thinking what is going on?

Thomas: 23:13

Were you speaking to him in the same tone you were speaking to? Yeah?

Lasalle: 23:17

You know, and I was just you know very firm on what I'm going to do and what not going to do but I think maybe that's why he was upset, because he was the one yelling. And you know, I think he thought that he was just going to tell me what I was going to do and I was just like that's not going to happen, like I don't know you, you're a resident and I said so. If there's an issue, I figured, okay, we're going to be dealing with the landlord soon.

Thomas: 23:39

And.

Lasalle: 23:39

I'll tell the landlord look, I had no reason to think I was doing anything wrong because you know, we were very transparent when we opened the place and we told them we wanted live music. We got the music license, we did the walkthrough with the fire, the Marshall and things like that, you know yeah.

Michelle: 23:56

Well, our business plan does say live music. That was our plan. We knew this is what we're going into to change this location and to bring new life to the location. And then there's several emails after the signing of the lease of to the property manager we need to get the permit, we need to get the fire inspection. This is your responsibility, this is our responsibility. This is the plan right, there's emails going back and forth.

Michelle: 24:24

So at this point the son lives above the restaurant bar and he had called left notices on our doors saying you're in default. The behavior was really erratic and I reached out to the property manager and the landlord and said who is this person? Is he an agent for the business?

Thomas: 24:46

Is he an?

Michelle: 24:47

agent for the building. I'm getting notices he's harassing my staff. At this point.

Thomas: 24:53

Hostess are usually about 16 to 18 years old, so they're not there to hear a confrontation with a male in his mid 40s telling them and verbally calling or in their face and like a land, like someone who has that kind of power to write, like you would think that they would want to go through the proper channels.

Lasalle: 25:14

Well, he's using words like the cease and things like that. But it wasn't even from. It was from him he did. There's a lot of misspelled words on there and things like that. Yeah, and we were like is this real? And he was doing this stuff on his own as a tenant.

Thomas: 25:29

Was he? Was this like some kind of mental health breakdown or something? I think.

Michelle: 25:35

I don't know him personally but, on paper. There are things that could be documented that portray that.

Thomas: 25:44

Okay, right.

Michelle: 25:46

He's going through something in his life where he is living in his father's building. He does have children, he does have an ex-wife. All these things are happening before we're there. So at the time when I met him at the boardwalk, I just thought, okay, you know, he's course important.

Michelle: 26:06

He was nice to me, then the landlord and the sound meat, and then this dynamic changes, which is odd to me, and I don't like confrontation and I'm thinking for my staff how do we handle this person not coming in here? There's a better way and I reached out to the landlord and the property manager and I said who is this person? What is going on? Can we discuss this? Yeah, okay, so I'm going to talk to the landlord. The landlord portrayed that he was really going to be proactive about this.

Thomas: 26:40

Okay.

Michelle: 26:41

Whether it was his son or not, he was going to hear me out.

Thomas: 26:45

So he was like I'm on your team, I'm going to like try to talk to my son, I'm going to diffuse it, the life be more, even if he is family.

Michelle: 26:53

This is not okay. Please describe everything that he has done. And so I bullet point send the notices, send the pictures, I send everything to them the property manager, the landlord at the time and the response was you are in default, you are too loud, you are bothering my tenant that lives above your restaurant and in that same email, my son's. This tenant, and forgive me, I don't know if in this email, if he said my son or the tenant, his tires got slashed and I'm still thinking okay, you have never come to me in the past.

Michelle: 27:42

Now we're, you know eight, nine months in music's been going on and you're not communicating with me any complaints that are going on. All of a sudden there's all these complaints. Okay, and that's what his goal was when he was emailing me back. This is still not a phone call. This is still not let me go down there. This is still not let's meet and talk. This is just you're in the wrong. He's off the hook kind of thing.

Thomas: 28:10

So the so? Let me get the kind of storyline straight, just for my own benefit. Right, you're in business rate month, great, everything's good. You, yeah, the landlord meets, the sell Seems fine. A week later, son starts acting up, starts showing up, complaining, putting kind of misspelled, trying to be official but not doing a great job at it. Yeah, right, you guys complained to his father, slash landlord. Yes, correct, that landlord responds to you guys, or you give them all the information, you're cooperative. He seems cooperative, seems great, but then he responds basically saying actually you guys are in the wrong and you've defaulted. So what does default mean in this scenario?

Lasalle: 29:01

Meaning we? Meaning he's trying to say that we he's never agreed for us to have live music there, okay?

Michelle: 29:08

So for commercial leases there are a lot of different rules and regulations, and one thing a commercial landlord can do to get you out is to find you in default of something. And then, but it's not just their opinion, this has to be a word of the law. It has to go to the proper channels.

Thomas: 29:33

Yeah.

Michelle: 29:34

Okay, you could be default for not paying. Yeah, you could be default for being too loud. You could be in default for not having insurance.

Thomas: 29:41

Okay.

Michelle: 29:42

So there's different things that you could do. So in this scenario, he is saying our live music is in default of the lease.

Thomas: 29:50

Okay, was.

Michelle: 29:51

it was the live music in the lease originally, so it wasn't excluded, okay, so a lot of times these commercial leases are about 15 to 20 pages long. You're not going to include everything you can do. It says we can operate as a restaurant, except a Mexican style restaurant, because we have. We're above Margaritaville.

Thomas: 30:11

Right.

Michelle: 30:12

Okay, so he did know how to exclude things.

Lasalle: 30:14

That's proven. That was proven. He can exclude things, so it's not like he doesn't know how he knew his rights of how to exclude something.

Michelle: 30:21

My business plan says I plan to do live music. There's several emails back and forth about live music and then you go to the commercial lease and it was not excluded. It says I can do a restaurant and operate as a restaurant. Now, if you look at all the people that have live music permits in Capitola, they're all restaurants.

Thomas: 30:43

Yeah.

Michelle: 30:44

The landlord himself. Steve Yeats, used to operate and own Margaritaville in the same building and he had live music DJs. It was a nightclub, so it wouldn't be far fetched for LaSalle and I to think that live music would be a problem. Yeah, okay, so in this building you got three apartments, three restaurants. Out of the three apartments there's Ryan Yeats, who's the son of the landlord, and one of the apartments at the time was LaSalle, and I had a residential lease there, and then the third tenant. They have just been excluding themselves from the situation and they just communicated. If we were ever loud, they really didn't have a problem. They live on the ocean with ocean view, and they live in the village, and their only thing that they have ever said was 11pm is reasonable to us.

Lasalle: 31:41

Can we? I just wanted, I wanted to like fast forward, but then come right back because right where she's talking about that and what I want everyone to kind of notice is like the way things are set up with the way he's doing the apartments, right.

Thomas: 31:57

Yeah.

Lasalle: 31:58

Because we'll probably get to that, because the Verizon tower there was a lawsuit going on with that. It was a big mess and they allowed. He allowed them to put it on the roof of the apartments and with that there was a lot of conditions and he, in order for him to get that to fly, he named, he deemed the apartments to be transient units.

Michelle: 32:23

Well, he made it portray that they were transient units.

Lasalle: 32:26

Yeah, right.

Thomas: 32:28

So, but now versus long term, right?

Lasalle: 32:30

So if they hear the music, someone like that wouldn't be able to argue the fact right, Because they're only there for a day or two days or three days. But now it's an argument because they're there as long term residents. So you get what I'm saying.

Michelle: 32:44

But a lot of the emails at the time of this conflict of the music began kept referring to the tenants of the building are complaining. Now the salad and I at that point we're renting one third of the building. Now there's four other people and as far as those other four tenants commercial and residential we only have one person, his son, that has complained from our knowledge I don't have any other documents of anybody else complaining Usually the other business owners and the other tenant if there was something off-putting we all communicate right.

Michelle: 33:26

When the storms happen, we're all communicating with each other how to get the building passed to open, so there is a community of business owners in that building that do support each other. So when we started music, Margarita Bill ever had a complaint. They would. They have our cell phone numbers, yeah.

Lasalle: 33:47

Even the Venetians. We talked to the manager there and he said I actually use you guys as a selling point because people come in and they ask what's to do around here. He goes that place right there has live music at so and such time. So he was like no, so no worry, you guys. You guys stopped music late enough, so he goes. He said we used to get a few complaints about Sandbar, but that stopped and no one's really you know, because Sandbar went a little later, right, but they showed they shut their doors and they've been doing for years now. They've been following the rules.

Michelle: 34:20

As far as how they did the operation, we do get a lot of support from the Airbnb's and the hotels in the area and the point being is you know, when you have people that want to come stay and park their car for two or three days and they just going and supporting the village and the shops and this music venue and this restaurant. That's the community we're a part of. Everybody communicates and everybody is just trying to utilize the tourist busy season and survive the winter.

Thomas: 34:53

Right.

Michelle: 34:53

Right. So those are gimmicks that we all work together to advertise and get things going and get different events to bring the people into the village.

Thomas: 35:03

Right.

Michelle: 35:05

So the community of the building I felt we were pretty much welcomed, besides this one tenant.

Lasalle: 35:12

Yes, yeah. They've showed a lot of support for us. And then we got the landlord. The most important person with our dream is the person that's just like just. He does not want to work with us. We've asked him several times let's talk, let's sit at the table, let's come up with a plan that makes everybody happy.

Michelle: 35:31

We even and in the end we even stopped music, we lessened the days we made sure we had a hard cut off of 8pm. We close our doors at 10pm during that time, because we knew first the village does die off in the nighttime and then you have the people that are going to the other establishments. So we knew that it was a business conscious decision to say, okay, we're going to close by 9, 10pm and that's our window of opportunity to make money. So throughout these emails and back and forth, we Got an official notice of default from the landlord saying you have 30 days to fix this remedy or you will be evicted. Okay. So now that goes back into why we started our GoFundMe. This started in April 2022, the disputes so this is last year.

Thomas: 36:36

Oh, my goodness.

Michelle: 36:37

And we were pretty quiet about it and we pretty much just dealt with it between the Sal and I and a close circle of people that we trusted to kind of be a sound board.

Thomas: 36:47

Yeah.

Michelle: 36:49

And we just said okay, we're going to hire an attorney to make sure that we are understanding the lease correctly and that we are not in violation.

Thomas: 36:58

Yeah.

Michelle: 36:59

And the attorney read everything and they advised us. You have a good case to counter his default and continue to play music. You're not in any violations of the city.

Thomas: 37:14

Yeah.

Michelle: 37:15

You're not in any violations of any permits. You have a permit, so go ahead and play out the rest of the year because the music permits there. Every year they have to be renewed.

Thomas: 37:25

Yeah.

Michelle: 37:25

Okay, so we had one for 2021. We have one for 2022. And now we're going through a situation to where we're making sure that we aren't doing anything against our lease because we have an investment here.

Thomas: 37:40

Yeah.

Michelle: 37:41

Right, you buy a business, you invest in that. Now you got to make sure that you got working capital just to get a new business going. Okay, so there's a big investment. That's our livelihood, that's our savings, that's our daughters. You know inheritance those are things that mean a lot to us, that we invested in the village.

Thomas: 38:01

Right.

Michelle: 38:02

And we invested in Steve Yates' building in the same sense. So now we're going to a dispute where we are asking him for a meeting.

Thomas: 38:12

Yeah.

Michelle: 38:12

Can we meet? You knew we were going to do music. Where can we go from here?

Thomas: 38:16

Right.

Michelle: 38:17

Can we give your son, the tenant, a rent credit, can we? We started even so before that LaSalle had installed a lot of sound boards a lot of soundproofing things. We did wood paneling on the walls. Again, this is music from 5pm to 8pm, which the natural noise ordinance of the city is 10pm.

Lasalle: 38:38

We even had the police come by and see the improvements. We talked to the chief and said you know what would you like? You know, just oh, we just need a contact person whenever we get a complaint and we do go by, but other than that, if it's the same person calling all the time, we'll kind of let them know like hey, we're not going to do this. Yeah right. So, sure enough, it was the same person calling all the time.

Michelle: 39:02

And then we wanted to make sure, like Sal said, we would go into the chief and chief daily and we would say are we doing everything correct? Because our landlord is saying this and there's complaints and we're not hearing it.

Thomas: 39:16

We don't know about it. So there's. It just seems like you know. I mean you guys are doing like everything, right? You know what I mean. Like when I, when I think of like as a business owner myself, right, and thinking of all the steps that I would if this situation came up to me, what I would do like you're doing everything logical logical reasonable.

Thomas: 39:39

Yes, and it sounds like from your description it's just kind of the landlord is the one who's kind of just kind of being angry about like he just wants his way. I feel right.

Lasalle: 39:52

I feel like he himself made a mistake.

Thomas: 39:57

Yeah.

Lasalle: 39:58

You know, by allowing us to have the place and, and and it's his, it maybe it is his mistake or maybe it's God willing, but you know he looked at us on paper and by doing that we were fully qualified. So you can't take that away from us, what color we are or what who we are. You can't take that part away from us because he said yes.

Michelle: 40:20

As a blind person we were approved yeah. He knew the numbers, he knew our plan, but he never met us face to face.

Thomas: 40:27

And then when he met you face to face, that was the start of everything changing Right, and I think it's. It's crazy to me because, like you know, there's no proof right, you can't prove that he's like going off of race or whatever, but it's it. The evidence seems very like clear to me, like it's a very like.

Michelle: 40:52

But the most reasonable person would say he can't prove that it's not.

Thomas: 40:57

Right yeah, and I think that's the problem, like with a lot of race things, definitely in our modern world, is that it's covered with a lot of bureaucracy, right, like, if someone wants somebody out, they can't just be like, oh, we want them out, because we want them out, they have to have like a logical reason and all this stuff. But since he has no logical reason, he like created the sound problem. That's what it sounds like to me.

Lasalle: 41:22

It's like it's like a company trying to train their employees for sexual harassment.

Thomas: 41:29

Yeah.

Lasalle: 41:30

You can sexually harass someone and not even know you did it because you're not educated and I believe that Steve Yeat is not educated on dealing with someone of ethnic to see that he's renting to, because I honestly believe he's never have done that before. He's never, never. This is the first time, so he doesn't know how to deal with it and with him doing so, he says things on paper that make him look like he's a racist. And we all have that problem, because even when I tell people like when I was bounty hunting, looking for people, profiling is almost okay in a certain sense.

Lasalle: 42:11

And most law enforcement guys understand what I'm talking about because it's just the norm. It helps me keep myself safe because of the judgment call that I'm going to engage with this person. But this is the situation he's in and you call it Okay. They say our guy is the Quan Jackson in West Side. He's in a high traffic area, he doesn't work I can't find any proof but he's got expensive cars and he's got these types of rims and things like that.

Lasalle: 42:43

We know how to deal with that because that's kind of right. It's how you engage and most officers don't know how to engage with that element, but you can use it for knowledge, right? Yeah, he's probably dealing on the street. He's probably got cocaine on him and it's probably not cocaine. I'm getting to say that it's crack because they thought some most black men take the cocaine and cook it. And then you've got a white kid, college student, down visiting his parents. But he ends up in Oakland. Why? Because he can go get drugs there. He can go get wherever he wants and then get out of there Because he's not going to buy it where his parents live. You're not even going to be able to get a bottle of old English at most of your stores. You have to go to a prominent black area. So all this stuff we know. But I'm even careful on how I deal with places. There's places where I have my badge on my gun. I'm walking up and the door gets shut and the police get called on me.

Thomas: 43:42

Yeah, and I'm just working, they're just the way their minds work.

Lasalle: 43:47

They think I don't have the right to carry a fire. I don't have a right to do my job, or to arrest their son or husband or daughter or whatever, and those things right there. You can either get upset or you can learn from that, and it's just sometimes it's shocking.

Thomas: 44:03

And it takes training right.

Lasalle: 44:04

Yes.

Thomas: 44:06

To be able to know how to use information that you gather. And I think what you're saying is, I think, almost like Steve Yates right, this is his name. He is acting from a racist point of view without even understanding what racism is. Absolutely you know.

Michelle: 44:27

Well, I believe that there's a lot of forms of racism that we all know of right. And one, the major one, is to exclude based on the shade of your color based on your ethnicity, it's the point to exclude you.

Michelle: 44:42

So when we all talk about equality and equal rights and look at me, the same the sound I. We believe we should have equal opportunity, right, we should have the equal opportunity as anybody else has. So sometimes it's really unfortunate that we do get shocked when we give get opportunity, like that's how crazy it is. You get shocked when somebody has the power and they gave you the opportunity to do your dream. Isn't that crazy?

Michelle: 45:19

Somebody that has that much power, instead of embracing our color, embracing our ethnicity, embracing that he gave us a chance, he is choosing to exclude us. He is choosing not to work with us. It's his choice, not ours. We don't have a choice, right. All we could do is respond and put out fires and and follow the rules, okay. But the person with power is choosing to not even sit at the table, not even shake my husband's hand, not even get to know us. But they, him and his son say a lot of things about Lassalle and I, but they don't know us, they've never met us Right, so they can't truthfully speak on us when they don't know us.

Lasalle: 46:09

You know when he was saying things. You know the son, ryan Yates, was saying you know a lot of things about me and this just aren't true, but I don't really let it get to me. But then you know, everything's on record. You know so you know, hey, would you? He's been arrested several times and I can say that because it's open record, it's public record, yeah, and it's all there.

Lasalle: 46:33

You know, people can pull his name up, go to the courthouse and pull everything up and the guy was a menace you know he was in trouble a lot, and for him to go around and say this about me and he doesn't even know me, it's just, it's a, it's a reach. It's him looking at me and saying he must be like all the others, you know.

Thomas: 46:53

Yeah, he's, he's. He's making assumptions based on your perception, yes, and not not allowing you to, not allowing himself to see the humanity that's in front of you.

Lasalle: 47:04

Right.

Thomas: 47:05

And and just kind of categorizing you in what he thinks you are Right, right, and I think that's a lot of what this work is around. But I want to, I want to kind of come back to, just to kind of finish off this part of the story. So he, they default, they give you an official default notice. Yes, you guys fight it, you know you guys get a lawyer.

Michelle: 47:27

Right.

Thomas: 47:28

And you get a lawyer that you're in the right and you continue to do what you're doing, and then now a lawsuit is happening, right.

Michelle: 47:36

So at the end of 2022, there's going back and forth about the music and default Correct. The attorney was brought in and we're doing business as usual. We still are minding the respect of the tenants of the building of doing a hard shutoff 8 pm. We are closing our doors 10 pm. This is Friday. Saturday night.

Lasalle: 48:00

Yeah, okay.

Michelle: 48:02

These are our moneymaker days and we are still being cordial. We cut down the music to karaoke on Wednesdays and then we had bands five to eight on the weekends, so we even lessen the days.

Thomas: 48:14

We're just emailing back and forth.

Michelle: 48:16

This is our part. What else can we do? Just, you know, having a conversation and not getting any positive response back other than don't want to talk to you, you're in default, right. So now we're coming into 2023 and now we realize, okay, we got to put in our other application for 2023 with the city of Capitola and we turn everything in and the chief says I can't process your application because the signature for the landlord on the form there's a space for the signature of the landlord and there's no signature. Okay, and I said, okay, the 2021 and 2022 in my head and I have record that those were not signed by the landlord.

Michelle: 49:03

So in about June 2022, just real quick, steve Yates. The landlord is now going to the police department telling them to issue a citation, telling them he doesn't want music in the building, telling them that now, this is third party what I'm hearing. But they did. The police department did share that. He went in there trying to get us to stop music and they told him we don't intervene, they have a permit and that's all we could do. Okay, so now 2023 permits coming up for the application. We meet with the chief and the city manager, jamie Goldstein.

Michelle: 49:48

And so from there, we had a meeting in person saying what can we do, what can we compromise with that? We don't have the landlord's signature. We understand that part, but my lease also doesn't exclude it. So there's legalities there and the city basically took a stance that we cannot decide for the landlord what goes on in his building and, without the signature, we cannot give you a permit.

Michelle: 50:17

In that meeting, there was a lot more said that I believe was basically trying to scare us from doing an appeal on that form, basically trying to detour us from wasting our $500 on an appeal process, and there was a lot of other things that went on in that meeting that I still don't think settled well with us From there. At the end, they did agree to reach out. The city of Capitola decided that they would agree to reach out to the landlord and offer a mediation, some kind of common ground that we can agree on terms so that we can have music for 2023. And then the landlord responded which is on our website, a long email about that that he really didn't want to negotiate with us and we were unreasonable and many other things in that email that are alarming to us. From there it became no music can't have music, or you will get a citation. So then Lissau and I have to pivot, and the lawsuit began because we decided that the default notices continued. It wasn't just about the music.

Thomas: 51:42

So hold up. So now you stop music because you can't get a permit. Yes, because of a landlord not being able to sign off, right? That's kind of the reasoning.

Michelle: 51:52

That's the reason in the city In the city.

Thomas: 51:54

It was like you know what this is getting messy, pretty much Like. Can we mediate this? We'll help with mediation. Yates refuses, says you guys are unreasonable and a bunch of other stuff, and continues the default notice even when you stop playing music.

Michelle: 52:11

So the default notices continued for other reasons. Now it was this reason. Now it was this reason, so it was any reason that he could nitpick out of the lease. And then all of these notices have to have a response and all of these notices have to Lissau and I have to make a decision. Are we in violation or are we not in violation? And that takes money and that takes legal fees. And now you're emailing back and forth between two attorneys and us and the attorneys say, no, let me do the research. No, you're not in violation. Or, oh, you do have to do this or pay this fee, or don't pay this fee. So now there's just a whole nother swirl of attorney fees just for every default notice. Music's gone. This has never been about the music.

Thomas: 53:00

So so. So he just starts going through the lease being like well, maybe I can get them out by doing this.

Michelle: 53:07

This default. There's security cameras.

Thomas: 53:09

Yeah.

Michelle: 53:09

There's satellite dish, then it's. Your jukebox is too loud. Then it's the elevator, the elevator the lift fees, that he rebuilt a whole new lift and so that's another thing, that $13,000 that he threw at us and said you have to pay this because I rebuilt a whole lift for the building, which at least says repair and maintenance. But, again, we do what our lawyers tell us to do. And then that's where we decide what we're going to fight against and what we're going to agree on.

Thomas: 53:43

Okay.

Michelle: 53:44

And so from there, we're about January. No music, storms happen, we're closed for two weeks. There's a lot of chaos going on and no real interaction between the landlord or assistance from the landlord. No rent credits.

Lasalle: 54:00

I mean he, we, he has a, the land manager who manages the properties, russell Gross properties, the between those two it's it's like their buddies. You know they're on the same page. They were there to destroy us. Even to this day they, you know we get letters from Russell Gross, acting like I'm just sending this over from Steve Yates, but really, you know they sit there and they collaborate and try to figure out a way to get us out or to deter us by these high bills and things like that.

Lasalle: 54:34

Yeah, thinking we would miss, like, not understand it and pay it Right. You know, we have to look through it and say, no, we dispute this because of this and that, and we have proof of everything and I always I'm a firm believer of who you hang around with is who you are. And I believe Russell Gross is just like Steve Yates. You know and and people need to know. People need to know who we are dealing with and I know he has a lot of properties that he manages around here, but I guarantee you those people don't know how he's managing his properties. Yeah, and I'm willing to bet that most of those properties, the people there don't look like me.

Lasalle: 55:13

So, you know, these are things that I'm just you know, I see and I know what's happening. I know it is based on the way I mean. If you're a property manager and you have a tenant or a customer that is doing something wrong and you see it's wrong, you know it's wrong, you have that choice to either continue to do what he says doing or just try to give him some like insight, like maybe you shouldn't do that.

Thomas: 55:39

You know, I don't think this is right.

Lasalle: 55:41

Yeah, or, like you know, I can't do business like this. I have a business, a reputable business, that I need to run, but he doesn't do that. So I know that these two are in cahoots and he's paying him the big dollars and he's thinking about money. He's not thinking about his future.

Thomas: 55:56

Yeah, and I think property management in general right is a service that landlords pay so that they don't have to be involved, right Usually? Yeah, you know, and so I mean it's logical to think that the interests it's not the clients, it's not the tenants' interests Like tenants are, in a property management standpoint, replaceable right. But it's who's paying them that are more not replaceable, or harder to replace.

Thomas: 56:26

And so I think in the kind of I mean like, if we agree that people do things based on their own self-interest right, yes, like he's doing this, he's the property manager here to serve the landlord, right, and so that makes complete sense. They're not here to serve the tenants, they're here to like the landlord's like we want these tenants gone. Is there some way we can do this Property management's like? Not really, unless they just decide to up and leave. Yeah, we can deter them, you know, by giving, like, saying they're defaulting on this, where they kind of have to constantly respond and, you know, pay a legal fee and eventually that's a lot of money, even for wealthy folks, you know.

Lasalle: 57:05

Yeah, I mean it's ridiculous that I mean even during all that storm stuff and we were like we couldn't talk to Steve because he doesn't talk to us, yeah, so we have to talk to the property manager, and at one point he even said he didn't want Michelle to call or talk to him. And the attorneys had to say, like that's ridiculous. Like how do you're the property manager? We have to talk to you. You can't just exclude not to talk to us.

Michelle: 57:30

Yes, and I'm going to say this another letter that I am not to contact the property manager, I am not to contact Steve Yates and I don't contact them for frivolous reasons. I am asking for assistance.

Thomas: 57:47

That's ridiculous. I am a tenant. I'm so confused Like well you can't. Who do you talk to Exactly?

Lasalle: 57:52

They can care less.

Michelle: 57:53

It didn't make sense in our turn, and again, more legal fees. So I'm making sure that I'm doing everything correct. Ask my attorney what does this mean? Well, we're not going to follow that rule because it doesn't make sense. It's not logical. Okay, so when we go back and circle to what the lawsuits are, the sound dive there is some disagreements about an option.

Michelle: 58:22

Okay, so, if you have a commercial lease, you are given options to, basically an option to renew your lease. Now, this particular location we are the third, fourth owner in the last five years. Okay, right, so we had taken on a lease that was originated in, I believe, 2019, around that time. So the first five years ran up in January of 2023. So that is where the landlord is saying, oh, you're in default for all of these things. You do not get to get your option. You're out, You're evicted January 31st 2023. You are no longer a tenant here. So that is where we have to fast stream and think how do we save our livelihood? Okay, and so also, we have the music issue and we decide we're going to go to mediation. This is in the lease right Some commercial leases there is some clauses of how you deal with disputes.

Michelle: 59:31

So there's mediation, then it goes to arbitration. So Yates, steve Yates did not want to participate originally in mediation. His attorney said we don't, we're not going to come to any agreement. It's a waste of money, a waste of time. Okay.

Lasalle: 59:49

That's a pretty much sure.

Michelle: 59:50

Well, and I said well, mediation is in your lease and that's what we're going to do. Okay, Because that's our right to take that first step. Now, mediation is really nothing legally binding. It's really meant for somebody to say the mediator is hired to hear both sides and give a logical recommendation of how you can come to a middle ground. He's basically saying I'm not going to even come to a middle ground, I don't even want to open the door for middle ground, I don't want to do mediation. Okay. So mediation goes on.

Michelle: 1:00:26

There was back and forth in the. We had separate rooms, separate zoom meetings, and the mediator came back and she explained that Steve Yates was concerned about our financial sustainability because we had just opened our third restaurant. She said I don't know if you did or not, Congratulations. I don't know if you did or not, but I don't really think that's any of his concern. And then she asked him are they current on their rent? Yes, they're current on their rent. Well, what if they did a new financial review? Not interested, Okay? So she came back to the room and she basically said there is no negotiation. If you are, he doesn't want to have any negotiation of you guys staying in the building and we said then we don't want to negotiate any other terms, we want to stay in the building. So that's how our mediation went and it was pretty, pretty fast.

Michelle: 1:01:32

I'd say maybe an hour and a half of going back and forth, but you know that's our thing. This is not about the music. We know we have rights to have the music. We know that legally, that we have built that foundation. Now it's about him making everything in his power to get us out of the building. So the lawsuit part of it was Lassau and Dye said okay, how do we get all these notices stopped? How do we get? Now they're being put on my doors. Now I'm getting an email, certified mail, once a week.

Michelle: 1:02:07

My staff is getting these letters, they don't know what's going on. And then we decide, okay, we're going to front all the costs to start the arbitration. Now arbitration is meant to both parties are equally pain, but we decided to start it because we wanted it. We tried to do an emergency injunction for the music part and this means can we make a decision on the music temporarily until we finally get a decision on all of these issues that are at the table. So that's was our motive to start arbitration and unfortunately, that judge didn't feel that didn't rule in our favor. That music was an emergency situation. However, they left it open, ended saying many things that they wish they would have seen from us, which kind of helps our case in the long run. And another thing that they decided that day was that he is supposed to participate in 50% of the fees, so now he has to pay us back $6,000 for arbitration to continue.

Lasalle: 1:03:21

Yeah, which he's never done, that hasn't happened yet. He can't do it. He has it but he just can't Right as a judge and he has to pay us.

Thomas: 1:03:28

Yeah.

Lasalle: 1:03:29

And he was. Then he tried to go into these things like, oh, they can take it out of the rent, trying to confuse everybody. Like no, I want it clean, cut you, pay us and we start. And he doesn't want to start because I'm very confident in an arbitration that we prevail because we've done everything we need to do, we pay our rent and we have no violation. So what is his case?

Thomas: 1:03:53

I think a lot of folks don't really know what they're getting themselves into when they're become a landlord. You know what I mean? I think, definitely locally, definitely with like the speed of that market coming to, you know, in society. You know renting out places, renting out apartments, all this stuff. And he's a residential and commercial person and he's in Hawaii most of the time. So it's not like he wants to do this, you know it's, it's, it's. He has a whole property management thing to do. You know he just wants to kind of hang out and have passive income, right, that's. I mean, that's why people get into this line of work. But I think it's interesting because, like, I think a lot of landlords feel like they have complete power over the situation. They have complete, they're like it's my building, I have 100% power, but they don't realize how many, how much rights tenants have.

Michelle: 1:04:48

Yes, and I think that you are right on as far as the treatment we've been given. It's my building, it's my way. I have the power.

Thomas: 1:05:00

Yeah.

Michelle: 1:05:01

However, when you open up your building to be leased, that becomes a business. That becomes a business in California, that becomes a business in the United States and there have regulations that do protect the rights of tenants.

Michelle: 1:05:16

Now commercial tenants we don't have as much rights as residential tenants but in this building we did have a residential lease that has come to the end because he evicted us from the residential apartment and the notice said that he is intending to take it off the market. He's taken the unit off the market. Now we had to make a logical decision. Are we going to fight this eviction or we going to say, okay, this is, he looks at it as a win and we look at it as a strategic thing. To where are we going to put our funds? What's worth fighting for? What's worth fighting for with our energy? Now, two weeks after we moved out, the apartment is released. It was up in the market. It was on Zillow. He now lives there within a month of him, of us leaving.

Thomas: 1:06:14

Does he has that on record him, right? Is that on us?

Michelle: 1:06:17

Oh, it's a court case in Santa Cruz County because we did intend to fight it but it became. Are you going to spend 15,000, 20,000 to fight a?

Lasalle: 1:06:28

lawful eviction. Yeah, we didn't want to fight, spend 30,000 just to pay him rent and then pay back rent because he wasn't accepting our rent. Yeah, we would pay it and he would return it.

Michelle: 1:06:38

And so with that, with the apartment, this is something that the sound I wanted in the deal because we lived in the East Bay at the time. So when we moved into the unit it was filthy. There was old refrigerators in there full of rotting food because the restaurant before us was closed for about 30 days, 45 days.

Thomas: 1:07:01

So, now.

Michelle: 1:07:01

This space was just a storage unit and there was no flooring. There was a window that had the sliding door didn't have the correct rubber seals, there's no heating element, there's dishwasher doesn't work, garbage disposal doesn't work. No paint, no cleaning from the landlord. Okay, we move in, and this is all documented as well. Lasalle puts flooring in, we paint the whole unit new dishwasher, fix the heating and this is because we intend to. We're doing everything that we say. We are re-rooting in Santa Cruz County. This is going to be temporary home. It's going to be comfortable for us. It's right next door to our restaurant.

Thomas: 1:07:47

Okay.

Michelle: 1:07:47

So this is our mindset. We have options to renew. We're going to be here for a while. We are settling in.

Thomas: 1:07:54

Okay.

Michelle: 1:07:55

And so all of this gets done and our first year in that apartment, he decides that we are going to go month to month now, which is convenient because it's right around the time. All of this starts happening. The disputes.

Thomas: 1:08:08

So a year in.

Michelle: 1:08:09

So a year in so eight months, eight months Right, and then 20, $25,000 that we put into make the apartment comfortable for our lifestyle and liveable I should say livable.

Thomas: 1:08:21

Yeah.

Michelle: 1:08:21

Right In a livable condition a year in. All these other disputes are coming. Now he's saying oh, the apartment, you're going month to month now.

Lasalle: 1:08:31

Everybody else has long term leases. You know, and it's just, it's it's mind boggling, but yet we understand what we're dealing with and who we're dealing with. And you know, all we can do is keep to faith and keep moving forward and prevail in that way, which I believe we would, because God doesn't like ugly, and we all know that. And when we tell you that being ugly he should be ugly.

Michelle: 1:09:02

All entangled and there's a lot. It's a lot. You know this is a lot to intake for us. This has been dealing we've been dealing with this for a year and a half now of this negativity, of this arguing. We opened our third business during all this time. That's our third baby. It's getting neglected because of all this other chaos that's going on, and the way we look at it is something's gotta give. And when I decided to reach out to you, I was kind of to my limit of. People need to hear us, people need to see our story. People need to. We're not the only ones that have dealt with this from landlords. This is somebody has control of your dream. You wanna start a business. I am the landlord. You get to rent and pay me rent. I'm giving you this opportunity and we did it well and we continue to do it well and we work hard at what we want to accomplish, but the hardship that this person is putting on our home and our family for what he's getting paid every month. So what is this about?

Thomas: 1:10:14

Yeah.

Michelle: 1:10:15

And that's where I needed to reach out and to say the only time bullies are stopped is when they're exposed Yep, and so I don't believe that this is new to any of us, but when's it not going to be normal, When's it not gonna be okay? It's 2023. When do we have what generation do we say? We are actually equal, we actually have an opportunity. We shouldn't be shocked that we got an ocean view restaurant on the Esplanade. We should just be accepted. It should be the normal right. And that's what I'm trying to express, and Lissalle wants to express that when you see successful people that look like you, that gives you a bigger jump and a bigger sense of pride that you have a chance.

Lasalle: 1:11:11

And be honest, every race does it. They want to be the mentor to their use and I want to be a mentor to my use or any use that matter because I'm here maybe by technicality, but I'm here now. I'm gonna stay. And now, the more and more I go through this, the more and more I'm seeing visions in politics, in becoming a role model and things like that, Because I'm seeing firsthand that there's a systemic issue that we have to confront and by me going through it and not doing nothing about it, I'm not helping. I have to help, I have to do something, whether people like it or not, but this is real and I don't want any child to just give up on a dream because of-.

Michelle: 1:12:11

They hear and know.

Lasalle: 1:12:12

What they hear or what they know, they can't. Oh, I can't go over there or I don't wanna be over there.

Michelle: 1:12:16

No, you can.

Lasalle: 1:12:17

you can do it and you should do it. And I'm not bringing elements that's going to destroy this place. I'm bringing elements that is going to better capitola. I mean, just go figure, if you had all these different cuisines and things to choose from only makes the place better. Different elements, different arts and things that people bring to the table so you can learn about culture.

Lasalle: 1:12:44

And I swear most racism is based is fear, especially with police fear. They fear somebody, they treat them different and if you didn't have that fear, I swear you would be a better officer. You'll be a better person because you know how to judge that person. You know how to deal with them. And it goes all the way back to the biblical days. You wanna disrupt anybody, separate them, and that disrupts everything. And in the Bible says they were building the stairway to heaven and God changed the dialect of their tongue and it didn't happen. So I look at that as people you know and just United States. It's like all these labels you know, just black, american, african American. There's so many I don't even came and keep up anymore. So what do they call a little mixed kids? I don't even know anymore. But if you're in Europe, if I go to Europe. I was born in Europe, you're European.

Michelle: 1:13:41

That's it. There's no label. Well, when we go to Europe, we're just Americans. Yeah, when we go to America, we're just.

Thomas: 1:13:47

California states.

Michelle: 1:13:48

Oh yes, california, california. So we gotta get all this whole labeling and name.

Lasalle: 1:13:54

You know, having a brand. You know just, I'm LaSalle Strong. I was born in America, I'm an American and I have a piece of the American pie in the dream and I wanna continue doing it and I wanna pass that on to my youth.

Thomas: 1:14:10

I, you know, I completely agree with you guys saying, and you know what really this is about. I think you know, yes, racism is clear, right, but even deeper than that is like a power dynamic. You guys like, when you look between the lines of your story, you didn't just fold and say like, okay, we'll do whatever you want. Yes, you know, and that.

Michelle: 1:14:39

Well, I am a Latina, okay, yeah, I mean, you know, there's some back boat.

Thomas: 1:14:46

But you know, there's, but there's, but there's, but you're right, you know and that's the normal society.

Michelle: 1:14:51

Is we think? Oh, am I bothering you? Well, like it's a normal of you know.

Thomas: 1:14:56

You know we live in a patriarchal, right, like very masculine dominated society, right, you know, it's just how it is. And we live in a very has systemic racism stuff going on. So like, when you're like a woman owner, people expect you to just, you know, don't do that, okay. Or if you're a black owner, don't do that, okay, okay, that's what they're used to in the power dynamic. And so now, when you have black and a BIPOC and Latinx woman person talking to a powerful, powerful white man who has privilege, who has a home, who who that his dad owns, you know all this stuff. And you say, no, you know, cause, like, think of it as that situation.

Thomas: 1:15:45

If that guy came in like complaining all this stuff, and you got there just like, okay, we won't do him music anymore, like whatever you want, you know they're like, oh well, that's that's right. You know, that's that's how this, this is how this is. You know, but you guys fought, you guys stood up for yourselves, which is which is, I think, really the trigger here Is that, like landlords and people like that are used to people just folding you know he uses words like unreasonable, and I think that's where he's coming from.

Lasalle: 1:16:18

It's like we're unreasonable because we're not agreeing to your silly terms. So now he uses that term to us, he's like okay, whatever, you know we are reasonable.

Michelle: 1:16:28

We've been trying to work with you Also. What defines a good business person? Okay there's a lot of people that became wealthy destroying other people.

Thomas: 1:16:42

Yeah.

Michelle: 1:16:42

Okay, but they're rich and they got money and they got land and they, they gained on others suffering. We all know that exists, okay, so there's that. And then there's the fact of who can be a business person. Can I be a business owner? Can I be successful? I know that I've worked for many other people and running their businesses and I contributed to their success. Right, I don't think I was paid what I was worth and they were gaining and they were escalating much faster than what my household was escalating, and that was the drive for us to become business owners. Right, and sometimes I, you know, look twice when someone says you're the owner's wife. And sometimes I'm not in the mood to even explain the concept of how offensive or whatever the reasoning is, because I guess a woman can't own a business without a husband back in her app, which is fine, because I respect the place my husband is in our home and our business. But sometimes my husband will say, well, I'm the owner's husband right.

Michelle: 1:17:56

And it's the same thing. We are in California but either way, we both are in this together. But it's just sometimes I catch myself correcting with other female business owners and what's approved and what's not approved of gender, and who can own this and who what. What makes sense? Well, when people look at Lissal and Di, they say he's the owner, she's the wife of the owner. Okay, that makes sense, because they don't know us. And then when they see our dynamic, they pretty much see that this is a partnership. This is something that we have.

Michelle: 1:18:34

We also are in a livelihood partnership, a lifetime partnership that is away from our businesses, that's away from our dreams that the public knows about. Right, we run a household together and so when we go in, we think about okay, what's our next step? You know, my husband is the leader, he's the foundation of the home. That's where we agree upon different things in private and when we say this is our dream, we think together how we're gonna accomplish things, and when this opportunity came in capitol, it was a no-brainer for us. This is something we love. This is a place we love, this is a community we love and for some reason, it was always in our routine to come visit here and we knew a lot of people here before we moved here and opened the restaurant. So now we're going to this circle of Lissal and Di have built our foundation together and now we're trying to accomplish our goals and be successful business owners.

Michelle: 1:19:43

And when somebody, like you said, has the power to break that spirit, they also have the power to ignite that fire, to support that flame and to help it grow. And we're not surprised, but we're just wondering when does it stop? When do people stop trying to put your fire out because of the color of your skin? And at what point are we gonna be able to circle around and say you know what? We own the building. Well, congratulations, you're the landlord, right? Us, as business owners, want to say how do we become the landlord? How do we own the building? How do we give people a place to dream and flourish and open the door for other people? And so us exposing this situation.

Michelle: 1:20:32

There's probably, we know there's so many people that got knows, you know. And racism doesn't exist by just police brutality, it doesn't just exist by, you know, messing with the black lives, matters, painting on the street. It doesn't just exist there. There's a silent zone of still, you are not equal to me. You are still going to have to obey me, you are still going to have to follow the rules, and when you say it's amazing, you get pushed back. But I'm his equal. That's how I look at it. I'm a business person, just like he's a business person, and are we gonna work together? Are we gonna work against each other? And so when somebody comes at me with a certain tone, I have a private conversation with my husband and I say do I go nice or do I go hard?

Michelle: 1:21:30

right because sometimes nice doesn't get it done, but sometimes, you know, honey does attract bees. Okay. So these are strategies and things that we decided inside our relationship privately of how we're going to push back. And there came a point where we just said you know what, sometimes you got to give what they get.

Lasalle: 1:21:52

Right, something like that give what they give you fight fire with fire, sometimes you know it's, it's, it's, it's one of those things. It's patience, you know. Sometimes you have to be patient, you know, and I that's one thing that I've always been happy about with what I've learned from being a bounty hunter is patience. It's a virtue. You know. Sometimes you lay back and you watch your situation unfold before you strike, and that's pretty much what we did here and now we're striking.

Lasalle: 1:22:21

Now we're holding people accountable for their actions, and not just Stevie H. We're talking about the city of capital as well, because we are business owners here. We should be treated like business owners. We should. You know, we should have some protection from the things that they're doing. You know from from his son, you know, putting notices on our door, going on social media bashing us and things like that. They know what Stevie H is doing, you know.

Lasalle: 1:22:49

But yet if one time we had a band, we had a band playing, we had a notice to have just a music strummed on a guitar and they call this before it happened and said, hey, you can't do this is violation, but yet it's still going on in our building with another tenant who gets to do it. They don't have a music license, and I don't understand it. Why is it different? You know, because we're in the light now and they have to look like they're doing something, but yet they, when we, when we say, hey, this is going on, it's like, hey, we can't get in the middle of that well that's the way of not doing anything for us what I question as far as the music permit goes and a lot of, a lot of laws that we know it's complaint driven, okay, so are we the the point to?

Michelle: 1:23:44

everyone's going to complain about Capitola Bar and Grill, they're going to complain about the Strong's, but this other business in the same building has music and no one's complaining, so we're not going to regulate them. The police do have a responsibility to regulate that permit. Okay, now either. The landlord said it's okay for them to have music. Well, I would like to know that. And do they have a music permit? I would like to know that. It's the same building, same landlord so same process.

Lasalle: 1:24:13

I mean, they should go through the process like we did, you know.

Thomas: 1:24:17

I mean the fact, like you were saying in the beginning, this doesn't sound like it's about the music it doesn't sound like about, and the city you know, from the way you've been describing, seems like they're kind of not wanting to get their hands dirty with this, right, and you guys have already reached out to the NAACP. Yes, right, and they sent like a letter to, so they they.

Michelle: 1:24:40

When you reach out to the NAACP, they have a process and they make a decision to notify the person that there is an investigation going on. That they are supporting, and they wrote a letter to Steve Yates and this is on our website as well. In December 2022, they wrote a letter from the organization stating that they have received a complaint from this address. They would, they are investigating it and they would like to offer mediation for both parties and they would provide the services. And he refused and he refused.

Thomas: 1:25:17

Yeah, see it like this. This, this situation like you're you're speaking on, I think happens way more than we would like to admit, but usually people either just submit or it's just in the darkness. You know, and in the courage you guys have to step up and not just fight but become public, you know, and just do this. I mean that takes a lot of courage and I think it's this is how change happens, you know and you know, I appreciate that with you guys.

Thomas: 1:25:52

You know, and yeah cuz it. Just it's inspiring to see folks stand up for once. You know, instead of having to just fold or just you know, a lot of people are not in the privileged position to have a lawyer. You know what I mean to like be able to. You know, just think of like the beginning business owner, entrepreneur, just kind of just like starting out no money, you know, and imagine, like this landlord, just kind of they're like we can't afford to fight this you know.

Thomas: 1:26:16

So there is this element where I think you're breaking also like stereotypes and norms in this process as well, and so there's just a lot of things that you guys are doing that are that is inspiring. So, here, just to end it off, you know I want you guys to. This is the last words, so just let us know what you want us to know and the community to know about. Like what, what should they be focused on? How can they support you? Like different things like that, what, what would you love to see? Going forward? And just if you wanted to end it off just with a just with like, why, why are you, why are you doing this? Like, what is the reason why you keep fighting? You know for this so go ahead.

Lasalle: 1:26:59

Yeah, either way, I can start. We really, we really dove into this with the intentions to be successful, like again, you know, for our youth and all youth and people that have a dream, that want to live their dream, and that's what we did and we're here now and the way people can help us is either one. If you don't, you know you don't have to be, you can be anonymous, you know. Help us with our legal fees, because the legal fees are for the legal fees, not for, you know, our, our lifestyle, because that's what we pay for. But we can't do both. You know it's just too hard because that's he's got abundance of money coming from things like like the cell phone tower rent from us so he can play these games because the money's coming to him. But we don't have that luxury and he knows that, so he's playing on that, which is Steve Yates so quick, quick, pause it.

Thomas: 1:28:02

Yeah, so he's making money from Verizon, from putting a Verizon tower on top of a residential unit correct.

Lasalle: 1:28:10

They pay him abundance up in the upwards of 25 to 30 thousand dollars a year.

Thomas: 1:28:15

I just wanted to make that clear that, like he's kind of making a lot of income from this situation, yes, and, and it's from like corporations like Verizon, and he still feels entitled to act to this way absolutely.

Michelle: 1:28:31

I think it's very important that Verizon knows that they are supporting his financial bigotry. The way I look at it, they're paying his legal fees.

Lasalle: 1:28:42

Yeah, absolutely yes but yeah, I mean, we want everyone to either come in and have lunch, have dinner, have breakfast and support us that way, or just simply donate to our GoFundMe, because it's legal fees and we'll post everything. We'll post our our, everything that we do on that and when we pay the attorneys and things like that our progress of our case, so they can see that their donation did help us and I would like to touch a little bit on that is that we have Firehouse Pizza Company.

Michelle: 1:29:21

That is off of Ocean Street is our new venture that we opened up during all of this chaos. So supporting our businesses means a lot to us, but also people that understand the civil rights part of this case and that are willing to go to the website. Our website is capitolastrongcom and we are trying to not associate all our businesses with the drama of what's going on, but it does take a lot of our time, so I do try to share the things that I'm going through on that website and there's a link to the GoFundMe. That is a great resource to us to pay our attorney fees, but also prayer, whatever religion. You are sending us a good email, sending the property manager, the city, that you're behind us an email and that you want them to look into this and support the Strong's. Anything that you have in your power could be a resource to us. You just may not know it. You may have a similar situation with deviates and your history might help explain to the judge that this is not just one incident. So there's many things that people can do, that they could research the laws, they could research the discrimination laws and maybe bring something that our attorneys aren't seen at that point. Our attorneys are paid to look at contracts. They're contractual attorneys, so this part of the discrimination has not even touched bases into our lawsuits and we believe that there is a lot to come from that that will prevail and all of our cases with this landlord and my husband.

Michelle: 1:31:13

We have been through a lot in our marriage, in our relationship, in our separate lives before we were even joined together. But my husband's always goal is to tell me if it's not meant to be, it's not meant to be. We are still going to be okay. And in this situation we are fighting because who has the power to take this right away from us? And we privately decided we're fighting this one. We are not just going to say okay, we're gone.

Michelle: 1:31:49

And what does that mean for the village? What does that mean for Capitola when this black-owned business gets kicked out for we don't even know the exact reason but when that happens to this community, what does that mean for the next person that wants to open a business here that doesn't look like the landlord, that doesn't obey the landlord, that doesn't question the motives of the landlord? And we just want to work together. We just want to come to some common agreement. It's a contractual dispute that has turned very, very personal and it doesn't make any sense when you don't even know us and we're just asking for support for, like our businesses and yes, we any good vibe and energy you want to send our way.

Lasalle: 1:32:47

I mean, we, we sell good food and you know, and I'm I'm personally saying that because that's what I strive for and I love hearing customers tell me that they had a good experience and they like the food and they like the changes, and we're doing stuff that's different. We're gonna continue to do that and we want people to come in and experience that and that's one way they can support us. I will still continue to do videos, you know, on things that are coming out and or specials that we're having, and for the winter season, you know, we want to do specials for the locals that come in and want to enjoy, you know, good food and try different types of cuisines and we have them out now, like our our Cajun Bisc, which is one of my favorites, and we have the Cajun shrimp boil. We have new burgers, we have a new salmon on with like glaze and couscous and things like that. You know I really like pairing those things together and getting different flavors and you know, one of my goals is to even be able to travel to France and and check out their cuisine and learn and take in some of that knowledge and bring it back and share it with with Capitola and and who knows, you know, this guy's a living, I might become something big and then I guess what?

Lasalle: 1:34:14

And he's he's a resident of Capitola. Continue to keep Capitola on them on the map here. So he said I love the city, I love the people here, the people are great. Unfortunately, we have one guy who's destroying all this good work, all the people that love us, all of people that don't see color and supporting us, and there's a lot. So what I'm asking the community is let's not let him destroy all that good work, because we put too much work and love and things in there to let him destroy everything. You know and I just if you give the devil an inch, he'll take a mile well.

Thomas: 1:34:56

Thank you guys for coming on to speak for change. It's been an honor to have you on my pleasure, thank you this has been speak for change podcast. I'm your host, tom Sage Penerson. Thank you so much for this.