COSTA MESA : City Appeals Tavern Fight to High Court

Henry ‘N Harry’s Goat Hill Tavern faces yet another legal challenge in its battle to keep its doors open, as the city takes its case to shut the bar down to the state Supreme Court.

At the request of the City Council, the city attorney filed a petition with the state’s highest court, asking it to reverse an earlier lower court decision granting the popular drinking establishment the right to operate.

While the tavern could be forced to close if the high court supports the city’s position, City Atty. Thomas Kathe maintained that putting the bar out of business was not the intention when Costa Mesa officials filed the petition.

The city has also requested that the case not be used as a precedent for limiting a city’s ability to control businesses within their boundaries.

“We are just trying to limit its scope,” Kathe said of the petition.

Gary Monahan, executive director of the tavern, lashed out at the decision to petition the high court, countering that it was just another expensive bid to kill his business. “As a resident and taxpayer of Costa Mesa, I find this ridiculous and overly costly in a time of budget shortfalls,” Monahan said in a prepared statement. “But more importantly, we at the Goat Hill Tavern and myself as its general manager are fed up with the city’s latest and most unwarranted ploy to save face.”

Earlier this month, a state appellate court rejected the city’s plea to close the Newport Boulevard bar. The court upheld a lower court’s ruling that the bar has a right to operate and is not a public nuisance. At the time, the owners claimed victory. Now they must wait to hear whether the Supreme Court will take up the matter. While complete review could happen, Kathe speculated that the chances are very slim.

“If the court takes it up, hey, it is a different ballgame,” he said. “But the likelihood of that is not very great.”

The latest development in the longstanding dispute comes more than two years after residents in nearby apartments complained that the bar’s patrons were noisy, littered the area with beer bottles and urinated in front of neighboring businesses.

The City Council refused to renew the bar’s permit in July, 1990, beginning the lengthy legal fight. The issue came back to the council several times for reconsideration, and each time the tavern came up on the losing side.

The Goat Hill Tavern is one of several bars along a stretch of Newport Boulevard that have found themselves in legal limbo over their right to operate. The latest casualty was Hogue Barmichaels, which moved to neighboring Newport Beach last month after losing its operating permit.