The Return of the Stolen Sidewalk?
I noticed this closed session item on this Tuesday’s Fullerton City Council meeting agenda.
Commonwealth and Harbor LLC, AKA Mario Marovic has been in litigation with the City for a long time now claiming some sort of misfeasance on the City’s part in the ongoing saga of the Florentine stolen sidewalk.
Friends may remember that Marovic turned out to be just as big a scammer as the Florentine Mob. After they walked away from their lease, he took over and planned to open two new bars.
He actually remodeled the so-called pop out without permission as part of his redesign. Oops. The pop-out belonged (and still belongs) to the City.
In the fall of 2023 the City decided it wanted the sidewalk back; Marovic wanted to open his fake Irish pub. Yes it was a clusterfuck courtesy of the boneheadedness of a City bureaucrat named Paul Dudley over twenty years ago. He talked the Council into letting the Florentines put a new building on a public sidewalk, a building addition not owned by the guys who owned the main building to which it is still attached. Oops.
A deal was struck a deal under which Marovic could get opened and the City could finally get its sidewalk back. Marovic could open Mickey’s Irish Pub bars and had until March 2024 to begin demolition of the offending bump out. The remediation work had to be done by July 2024.
March 2024 came and went; March 2025 came and went. There was no work performed. Instead Marovic continued to use the public’s building and sued the City. I hope he was paying rent to us, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t.
Marovic has been in breech of his agreement for over a a year and a half. For some reason the City has been playing a protracted legal game with this individual instead of evicting him from our premises for being in default. Maybe the City-folk were trying to dodge personal embarrassment – just like their predecessors have done for the past two decades. Maybe they were still hoping that Marovic, somehow, would do what he was supposed to do – a hope so incredible as to be absurd.
My hope is that no settlement is made, at least not one where the City is not fully recompensed; that Marovic pays for the City to do the demolition work (he can repair his own building exterior), covers all our legal fees, and kicks back a portion of the profit he has made using our building.
I am not hopeful about my hope. The City can’t even seem to get Les Amis to pay their years late rent. Playing hardball just isn’t in their repertoire. My guess is that the City will vote to give Good Ol’ Mario a second chance. Or maybe they’ll just drop the thing altogether and the sidewalk will remain as is.
Incidentally, I wonder if Ahmad Zahra and his young sprout Elijah Manassero will give the stolen sidewalk item the scrutiny and transparency the public needs. Bet not.
A lot of people have had to do a lot of looking the other way about this for a long, long time.
You never know. Some judge like Nelson might figure Marovic has a claim for something or other and he uses that to do nothing.
Just look at the picture of Zero yucking it up with Marovic and giving him a proclamation.
There’s no way young Elijah would want to delve into this. Neither will the Observers – except maybe the crazy old woman who lives on Malden.
She would throw the first blow of the sledgehammer.
Suck it up losers. You aren’t getting your sidewalk back. You can thank Dunlap, Jung and Whitiker for that.
Back in 70s and 80s, there were 3 Jehovah Witnesses that stood at the exact location of the bump out holding their Awake pamphlets every morning. Would see them every day on way to school and wave at the happy old dude in his suit and hat. Anyone else remember?
Yep. Rode my bike to FUHS from 75 to 77. I remember them.
I suggest occupying the seats in the stolen sidewalk bar space and ordering a bare minimum of food or drink all day and evening in shifts every day to make it unprofitable for the owner. Sit down, order a seltzer water and nurse it for hours or until the next shift arrives.
That’s not pro-business!!
No, but it’s free market.
It’s the “pro business” light touch. Welcome to America. If it was Bushala and they came down on him you’d no doubt be arguing how it’s the heavy hand of big government and that we should just give it to them for all they’ve invested in the community. And of course by community, I mean politicians.
Bushala has never stolen public property so that’s a fucking stupid thing to say. You reveal your own bias.
If you ever stop saying stupid stuff I will lose my bet.
The City Council has been and always will be fiscally irresponsible. It’s their DNA.
Sad to say. There is zero accountability.
People like Zahra, Charles, and Manassero are born selfish and evil. They don’t know any other way.
Naturally the Kennedy Sister got the facts wrong. She said Marovic bought the building from Florentine.
He bought the building from the Condon Family Trust and the Florentines became Marovic’s tenant.
Marovic wanted them gone and they left during COVID. But they abandoned their bump-out; the City which avoided litigation with the departed Florentines became the de facto owner of the bump out.
Marovic does not own the bump out. He cut a deal 2 years ago to remove it and hasn’t. Instead he sued the City.
Big win for Mario — outsmarted the city and Tony’s crybaby ass in one move. Tony’s got all those millions and still couldn’t kill this one. Tough break, Loser.
Boohoo moans, whines, and howls, Fullerton loses. If it weren’t for losers, there wouldn’t be any boohoo.
Fullerton is loserville, Tony and all!
Yay! City outsmarted, citizens ripped off. Nice narrative ya got there.
Wahhh 3-feet of sidewalk. Nice, beautiful classy bar increasing downtown property values and a nice space for Fullertonians to enjoy. Cry more, loser.
If by classy you mean fake Irish pub illegally squatting in and on on public property courtesy of incompetence and theft, then yes. Very classy.
You’re referring to Micky’s Irish pub as “classy”? Yeah right. I tried it once which was all that was needed to say, YUK! Their corned beef and cabbage is absolutely abysmal. It comes out of a can, for crying out loud! I mean, who serves canned food in a place that claims to be authentic? It’s not even remotely close to being real or homemade. It’s a disgrace to Irish cuisine.
Just because a place has a shamrock on the sign does NOT automatically make it authentic.
I wouldn’t expect someone named Hill Billy to recognize classy if it bit him. Stick to your canned dinners.
We’re literally talking about a few feet of sidewalk from 20 years ago. That bump-out makes the block better and more lively, dumbass. It’s more of a public benefit than whatever Tony claims his little “public” café patio at the train station provides.
Face it, this has been Tony’s big bitch for 20 years, and he still couldn’t do squat… because he’s a LOSER.
For a LOSER he sure seems to be doing a lot of winning!
It’s only a small theft, and after all, Marovic only ignored a small agreement that HE made with the City waaaaay back two years ago. Ancient history.
The City should have evicted him from OUR bump-out when he reneged on the deal. Whatever.
They will undoubtedly give him another chance to do what he already promised. He will probably renege on that, too.
Classy? That word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
“Classy” is one of those tell-tale sign words that betray the classlessness of the speaker.
Yeah. Another is “luxury” pronounced lugzhery.
That overhang is over the public ROW, too. Did anybody ever get a permit for that?
Sweet young Elijah STRIKES OUT AGAIN.