PORT ANGELES — The aging wooden structure at the Port Angeles Boat Haven that recently housed the Jig & Lure Fish Co. restaurant was torn down Monday for a laundry facility.
The restaurant shut down in March 2017 owing the port $4,283 in back rent, according to port records.
Port Executive Director Karen Goschen said Monday that kitchen equipment that had been abandoned at the restaurant offset what its owners owed the port.
“The port was made whole,” she said in a text message.
Former restaurant co-owner Stephen Fofanoff had “no comment on that stuff,” he said Monday.
“We’ve left it behind, and we’re moving on.”
The experience “ruined us,” he said.
Fofanoff said last year that he was refusing to pay back rent in response to the port failing to fulfill a promise to pay for and install a new heating, ventilation and air conditioning system, a promise Goschen said the port never made.
The taxing district was turning the page Monday, too.
Port employee Bob Beaudette spent about an hour knocking down the 2,000-square-foot building.
His excavator chomped on and crushed the one-story structure, at one point plucking from the wreckage, toylike, what looked like a commercial stove.
“Want me to put [the building] back together now?” he quipped at Facilities Manager Chris Rasmussen while Beaudette’s CAT 316E squatted in the rain and rubble.
Renovating the structure “was not a cost-effective option for this marina property,” Environmental Manager Jesse Waknitz said Monday in an email.
By the time the laundry facility is built this fall, marina tenants and visitors will have what’s considered a standard amenity at most other marinas, he said in an interview.
The two-washer, two-dryer setup will be accessible only to port tenants and include a surveillance camera.
“It is a relatively long walk or taxi ride from the marina to a laundromat,” Waknitz said.
“It’s just a nice service to have, especially for transient boaters.”
The project will cost $140,000, not including $20,000 for demolition.
Rasmussen said there was nowhere else at the Boat Haven where the facility could be located where it would not be a hindrance or eliminate parking stalls.
“We just finally decided to take it down,” he said Monday morning while the excavator clawed through the detritus.
“The laundry facility, as far as I know, has been an ask,” Rasmussen said.
“They’ve been asking about it for a while.”
The site also will include at least two boat storage locations, with 50-amp power pedestals, that will be completed by June, Rasmussen said.
He said the work is being done by port employees.
The restaurant was sold in 2016 to Fofanoff and to Chris Warnock, both of Port Angeles, through their Vancouver-based Heart and Soul Hospitality LLC, which according to state Secretary of State’s Office records was administratively dissolved May 31, 2017.
The port on March 2, 2017, posted on the building a vacate notice for nonpayment of back rent after Fofanoff closed the restaurant and did not make payment arrangements with the port, port Executive Director Karen Goschen said at the time.
On March 6, 2017, Fofanoff posted a notice saying he did not have $150,000 to bring the building to code for commercial occupation.
“We were forced to close because of the high cost of doing business coupled with internal theft by employees,” he said in the notice.
Fofanoff said $10,000 to $15,000 in cash was “systematically taken” by employees.
He said he did not file police reports on the thefts.
The Port Angeles Police department recommended to the Clallam County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office in December the filing of felony second-degree theft charges against two former restaurant employees, Deputy Police Chief Jason Viada said Monday.
Fofanoff estimated last March that $2,500 in kitchen equipment and beer had been stolen.
Prosecuting Attorney Mark Nichols said Monday that he hopes his office will make a charging decision by Friday.
The second-degree theft charge covers thefts with a value of $750 to $5,000.
Former employee Christina Fenner told Peninsula Daily News on March 14, 2017, that after Fofanoff missed four pay periods, employees began quitting.
Six former Jig & Lure employees filed wage complaints with the state Department of Labor and Industries, agency spokeswoman Debby Abe said Monday.
Two were resolved, the L & I agent found out the wages had been paid in two other complaints, and in a fifth complaint, the employee did not respond to a request for additional information.
When the sixth complaint was filed, the business had already declared bankruptcy, Abe said.
Fofanoff and Warnock filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy March 30, 2017, according to court records.
Fofanoff said he raised $24,000 for the Boys & Girls Clubs and other community causes by paying his employees decent wages and having customers leave contributions instead of tips.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 55650, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
