Centralia Liquor Commissioner and Mayor Bryan Kuder held a public hearing Thursday afternoon to gather evidence on his proposal to revoke the liquor license of the Centralia House Restaurant.
The notice to owner Dan Ramey said the revocation was based on a portion of the liquor license that the business has not operated for more than 30 days.
But Ramey says the closure is due to extensive storm damage in July and more than $100,000 in renovations are now underway after his insurance company finally completed their analysis on what work the policy would cover.
“We continue to take inventory and continue to remove damaged merchandise and damaged carpeting, construction debris, water damage, etc., etc.. We kept up the liquor license that was just issued to us for a year in July that we paid for the last 25 years. We kept up all of our insurance, gram shop, liability, and building coverage. We’ve kept up on our utilities, our phone, payroll and accounting, and even cable, CPA, and software fees. That’s not a business that ceasing doing business in my mind.”
Ramey feels the Kuder is misinterpreting a vague ordinance that does not apply to him. The former City Manager feels Kuder may have an ulterior motive.
“I informed the mayor the basis he was used should not be used unless there was some political motivation and his obvious apparent dislike towards me. This is due to my questioning of the validity of the Mayor due to his living outside the city of Centralia at that time. The city attorney at the time agreed. The City Council also agreed 100 percent with the City Attorney and they never seated the mayor at that time. The issue was never settled in the courts on the facts as he withdrew complaints asking the court to override the city council’s actions.”
The court case was dropped as Kuder won the Mayor’s position in an election two years later and his seating was not challenged at that time.
Ramey noted he purchased the Centralia House Restaurant 25 years ago from the former owner who planned to close it. He says the restaurant has undergone a major renovation, expanded to a second downtown building, and has completed $ 10 million in sales and hundreds of thousands of dollars in tax revenue to the city during that time. In addition, he says it has employed several people and a place of fine dining not only for Centralia residents but for a large regional client base including those coming off the Amtrak trains.
Ramey added during that time, the Centralia House has never had a liquor license infraction and the action Kuder is attempting to take is unprecedented. Ramey added by revoking the liquor license, he understands he could not reapply for at least a year which would put Centralia House out of business.
Ramey says the storm in July lifted up part of the roof of the building and caused damage to the walls, as well as the interior water damage. He immediately called his insurance company but has faced a lengthy wait. Ramey also noted just two weeks before he received the letter revoking his liquor license from the Mayor, the city’s economic director had called to see if the business needed any assistance. Ramey thanked him for the call but said they would not need funding from the tax increment financing district.
Ramey received comments of support from former City Councilman David Sauer and attorney Dan Price. The only city witness was City Clerk Kim Enke who noted the last tax revenue paid by the Centralia House was in August.
Kuder said he would rule on the revocation within five days. He didn’t answer Ramey on the way out of the hearing if his liquor license was still good until his ruling, but City Manager Kory Smith later told Ramey the license was still good until Kuder took any final action on the revocation.
Centralia Mayor Bryan Kuder listens to the argument of Dan Ramey to keep the Centralia House liquor license.
