Harbor Village Tenants Blame Rough Seas on Landlords

Unresponsive management by the landlords of Ventura Harbor Village, compounded with the already poor economy, is sending business at the shopping center into a steady decline, merchants there said Monday.

The latest casualty is Bedfords, a restaurant that locked its doors July 1 and began selling its furniture and equipment.

It is the second restaurant in two months to leave the shopping center at the Ventura Harbor: La Marina Cantina closed in June after a dispute over alleged unpaid rent.

“To the port district’s revenue, it’s not noticeable,” district General Manager Richard W. Parsons said of the Bedfords closing. “But the unfortunate aspect is it’s a very visible, very nice restaurant that a lot of people go to. People enjoyed the place, and when a restaurant like that calls it quits, it’s certainly most unfortunate, and it doesn’t look good.”

Parsons also said the overcast summer weather has kept customers away.

Merchants realize that the poor economy nationwide has hurt businesses locally, said Paul Gates, president of the Harbor Village Merchants Assn.

But the merchants also blame the downturn on their landlords--the Ventura Port District and Great Western Bank--each of which owns about half the shops and restaurants at Harbor Village.

“Everybody’s having problems with the port district and the bank,” said Gates, who owns the Spinnaker Seafood Broiler. “We don’t have anybody with a vested interest in the harbor. The district’s buildings are turned over to a management company; Great Western turned its buildings over to a management company.”

Gates and other merchants said the landlords have drastically cut back the amount of money that they spend on advertising Harbor Village, and they have failed to post signs to lead the public from the gate at Harbor Boulevard and Olivas Park Drive to specific restaurants and shops.

They also criticized the landlords for failing to build an aquarium at the harbor, as was promised earlier. Developers estimated that the aquarium would have attracted 1 million visitors per year.

And the merchants said the landlords have not maintained Harbor Village as well as they should.

“(The lack of signs and advertising) had a marked effect on many of the businesses here, and it has affected some of the restaurants here that are marginal,” said Glenn Halley, co-owner of Milano’s Italian Restaurant, which rents its space from the port district.

“They’re not really doing anything illegal,” Halley said. “But . . . nothing seems to be running right. Everything’s out of control. Things aren’t being done to keep things running smooth.”

Bedfords had been operating since 1986. But with the decline in business, the restaurant could no longer afford to pay Great Western Bank a monthly rent of $1.40 per square foot, said Samuel J. Arsht, an attorney for the restaurant’s operating company, Spaz Enterprises Inc., made up of Lou and Jan Spasiano and their son, David.

Of Lou Spasiano, Arsht said, “He really invested, so to speak, their life’s savings in the business. He’s very disappointed that the business failed, and he’s disappointed that the landlord did not assist him in times where it was apparent the landlord needed to lend assistance.”

But Great Western Bank officials believe that Bedfords’ business practices, not the economy, caused the restaurant’s demise, said Roger Clark, an attorney for Royce Asset Management Group, which manages the Harbor Village properties for the bank.

“I’m told there’s a tremendous amount of interest in the Bedfords space, and it will be only a short matter of time before it can be leased out,” Clark said.

Since Bedfords closed, traffic has thinned in some neighboring businesses, such as Casa de Regalos, a gift shop.

“We’ve had a loss since they left,” said Shannon Pennington, who sat behind the counter in the empty shop reading a thick novel. “People came to Bedfords to eat, and they’d come over here and shop. . . . On weekends, they had a live band in there, and they attracted a lot of people.”

Business has remained steady at the Hi Cees Cafe, a bar next to Bedfords that opened last November, Hi Cees owner Rick Ross said. “But the bottom line is we lost two major businesses in a month,” he said. “I certainly don’t think it’s going to help.”