Nearly five months after the Berkeley City Council voted unanimously to foreclose on the almost $641,000 lien for the vacant lot at 2501 Haste St., the city has filed a lawsuit against the property owner.
Court documents list property owner Kenneth Sarachan defendant in the suit, which was filed with the Alameda County Superior Court Jan. 26, according to court documents.
The lawsuit also lists Sarachan’s wife Laurie Brown as a defendant, because she “may have a community interest in the suit.”
The site on the corner of Haste and Telegraph Avenue has been vacant ever since the remains of the burned-down Berkeley Inn were removed at the city’s expense more than 20 years ago.
Sarachan — who owns various properties along Telegraph including Blondie’s Pizza and Rasputin Music — bought the lot from the city in 1994.
The full amount of the foreclosure includes $503,034 for the property’s deed of trust as well as a $137,923.39 nuisance abatement charge, bringing the total amount to $640,957.39.
No trial date has been set as of yet. According to court documents, the next scheduled event is June 12, when there will be a case management conference, which is a typical meeting between the judge, plaintiffs and defendants before the trial begins.
Adelyn Baxter is the lead city government reporter.
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It’s high time to eliminate the jew.
Agree. Boycott those stores owned by that scumbag. That lot is ugly and could be used for other uses.
He owns the land and buildings that Rasputin and Blondie’s Pizza occupy. However, he doesn’t own the businesses. If you boycott the businesses, you’ll just be hurting those local community members.
Unless he’s sold them recently, he owns not only Rasputin’s & Blondie’s, but also the clothing store at Durant & Telegraph (T-Shirt Orgy et al.). And Rasputin’s has stores in San Leandro, Campbell and elsewhere.
Tony, he hasn’t let that lot lie vacant because of lack of capital. He purchased it because he feared that Amoeba was going to buy the lot and expand into it, and rather than face the competition (from, I might add, a vastly superior establishment) he decided to just sit on it out of spite. Sarachan is well known, by anyone who’s ever had the misfortune of working for him, as a loon and a cokehead who treats his employees like dirt.
I guess that’s why I studied engineering instead of humanities or the liberal arts. I never did have much of an urge to work in a pizza place or record store…
Studied engineering to retire and spend your life on teh internetz?
Ouch. That’s gotta hurt.
Nice laydown, Tony.
Everything that Nunya posted about Sarachan’s vendetta with Amoeba is true.
He owns Rasputin and Blondies, not just the buildings.
All students should boycott Rasputin and Blondie’s to protest that scumbag Sarachan.
And he is a scumbag for what particular reason again? He may simply be a mediocre businessman who got over his head on this deal. If we we are to start calling people “scumbags” for making poor decisions, what would that make the millions who are being foreclosed for buying houses they could not afford to begin with?
I respect your dedication to stopping the act of name-calling…
Oh wait never mind, you do it in every other post…
MEGALAWLZ!
There is a huge difference between this guy, and the thousands of people who weren’t victims just to capitalism, but were pawns in a game of subprime lending in which they were encouraged to sign for loans that they banks were betting against them. Should the people have been more informed before they signed? Yes. Should they have done their research? Yes. But the fact of the matter remains that they were part of a scam in a system designed to make them fail so that banks could profit on the dream of owning a home.
Sorry, Tony, I’m a conservative too, but you’re dead wrong on this one.
Sarachan bought the empty lot at Haste and Telegraph and deliberately turned it into a rat-infested public health hazard as a giant “f*** you” to Amoeba. If he was starved for capital, how did he come up with the money to buy Cody’s? (Which you may note is also across the street from Amoeba, and has also been vacant since he purchased it.)
Sarachan is a total scumbag, who has intentionally created multiple vacant storefronts and public nuisances to further his personal vendetta against the ownership of Amoeba.
Boycott Rasputin and Blondies.