BREA : Owner Says His Place Has Its Price

In his efforts to save his business from the city’s bulldozers, Seaton Greaves says he often feels like a modern-day Don Quixote.

Greaves, 61, owns Sam’s Place, a neighborhood bar that is housed in a two-story structure built about 1915 in Brea’s historic downtown.

The bar has made good money for him, Greaves says. But over the past two years, the Brea Redevelopment Agency has tried to buy him out or move him to another part of town as the city prepares the site for a massive redevelopment of the downtown area.

Greaves has resisted, saying he plans to stay unless the agency pays him what he considers a fair price for his 7,000-square-foot property. He says the two sides are now more than $100,000 apart, although agency officials declined to confirm that amount.

Greaves said the agency offered him $630,000 about a year ago. He wants $775,000, which the city rejected. Last month, the city offered to settle through a binding arbitration. Greaves said he refused, preferring instead to go to court and let a jury decide the case.

“I’d rather put it in the hands of 12 people, not one man,” Greaves said. “What if the arbitrator makes the wrong call?”

Redevelopment Services Director Sue Georgino said the City Council, sitting as the Redevelopment Agency, will take up the matter later this month. “We were willing to bind ourselves to a third-party arbitration and avoid attorneys’ fees,” Georgino said. “But it was rejected.”

The situation underscores the city’s problems in pushing through the ambitious $100-million project to convert the old downtown area into a mixed residential-commercial complex.

Georgino said at a recent council meeting that the developer, Watt/Craig Enterprises, has so far not been able to secure financing for the project. Construction of a 22-acre shopping complex at the corner of Imperial Highway and Brea Boulevard, which is the first phase of the 50-acre project, has yet to start.

Opponents of the project say the city made a mistake and did not anticipate the economic downturn when the project was approved more than two years ago. The project includes outdoor cafes, art galleries, a theater complex and houses for artists.

In the meantime, more than 600 residents of the downtown area have been forced to move. Business owners have either been bought out or relocated.

Currently, only six businesses are left in the downtown area. Sam’s Place is one of them.

Greaves, an immigrant from the Caribbean island of St. Vincent, said he does not care too much about his building, which the Brea Historical Committee has sought to preserve. He said he is concerned mainly about his business.

“The building is insignificant to me,” Greaves said. “It belongs to the citizens of Brea. But I care about the business.”

Brian Saul, a member of the historical committee, said the building was built by a local baker, Sidney Cramm, in 1915. In the 1950s, a Basque sheepherder, Sam Landa, bought it and converted it into a bar.

In 1978, Richard Finney bought the bar from Landa. And three years later, Greaves bought it from Finney, he said.

“It makes money,” Greaves said. He said from January to March this year, he grossed more than $60,000.

Greaves said that his fight with City Hall is stressful but that he’s not ready to give up. “They can’t just run us out of town with their bulldozers.”