Gatling filed the response Wednesday, the last possible day to do so, Chichester said.
The city attorney disagrees with Gatling’s arguments. “In the beginning the city negotiated with L&M (Hospitality) and ended up with two agreements. One was the lease. The second was to buy the theater for a specified price or have the lease payments applied to it. The only reason L&M is not at the theater is because he didn’t make his payments. He has not made a payment since May.”
Chichester said another reason for ousting Gatling was the few shows he produced. “It’s our opinion he had this very valuable piece of property to run and all he was doing was running a bus service out of it. All he was doing was causing the aesthetic value of the property to go down the tubes. The city couldn’t stand by and let that continue.”
The city went to Raleigh and elsewhere to talk to legislators about securing funds for the theater, Chichester said, but were told they couldn’t for a private business.
In claiming the city is barred from relief because of unclean hands and lache doctrines, Chichester said Gatling’s attorneys don’t present evidence of this.
He said the city will be preparing a response. “You can rest assured we will not wait until the last day. We’ll be firing one off shortly.”
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