District Court, City and County of Denver, Colorado Court Address: 1437 Bannock Street, Room 256 Denver,

CO 80202 Plaintiff/Petitioner: MORREALE HOTELS, LLC, a Colorado limited liability company v. COURT USE ONLY Case Number:

16 Character #: ___________________ Defendant/Respondent: CITY AND COUNTY OF DENVER, ____ COMMUNITY AND PLANNING DEVELOPMENT SERVICES; MICHAEL ROACH, as CHIEF BUILDING Division OFFICIAL; DENVER BOARD OF APPEALS FOR Courtroom COMMUNITY PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT Attorney: Michael J. Gates Foster Graham Milstein & Calisher, LLP 360 South Garfield Street, 6th Floor Denver, CO 80209 Phone: (303) 333-9810 E-mail: mgates@fostergraham.com Fax: (303) 333-9786 Atty. Reg. #: 31270 VERIFIED COMPLAINT AND MOTION FOR INJUNCTIVE RELIEF Morreale Hotels, LLC, through counsel Foster Graham Milstein & Calisher, LLP hereby submit the following Verified Complaint and Motion for Civil Protection Order pursuant to Colo. R. Civ. P. 65 and as grounds therefore state as follows: 1. Morreale Hotels owns the property located at 101 North Broadway Street, Denver, Colorado 80203 (the Property). 2. The Property is leased to a restaurant development and operations company that occupies the space as two existing and operating restaurants, El Diablo and Sketch Food & WIne, as tenants. 3. VI, 9. This Court has jurisdiction over this matter pursuant to Colo. Const. Art.

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4. Venue is proper with this Court pursuant to Colo. R. Civ. P. 98 as the defendants are governmental entities or actors in the City and County of Denver, Colorado and the subject Property is located in the City and County of Denver. 5. Jesse Morreale is a natural person over the age of 18 years and is competent to testify. 6. On January 4, 2013, the Defendant Michael Roach as Chief Building Official issued, without warning, an Order to Vacate the Property effective immediately claiming the building to be in an unsafe condition and that the current occupancy is illegal. 7. A true and correct copy of the Order to Vacate and Posting are attached hereto as Exhibit 1. 8. Nothing had changed about the structure since the Defendants were ordered by the Defendant Denver Board of Appeals to vacate a similar order issued in July 2012. 9. The July 2012 Denver Board of Appeals ruling to vacate the July Order was contingent upon Plaintiffs compliance with certain specific terms detailed in the Boards ruling. 10. Plaintiffs have complied with these requirements as directed by Defendants and the Board of Appeals ruling 11. The Plaintiff was operating under assurances from counsel for the Defendants Community and Planning Development Services and Michael Roach as Chief Building Official that they would participate in good faith in the resolution of their differences and would not take any action regarding the Property until it had discussed its conclusions with the Plaintiff. A true and correct copy of that assurance is attached as Exhibit 2. 12. The Plaintiff was justified in relying on this representation. See, e.g., Jones v. Aurora, 772 P.2d 645 (Colo.App. 1988). 13. On the day he issued the Order to Vacate, Defendant Roach contacted Sean Yontz, Operations Manager for the tenants at the Property to express that he was sorry that the employees would be losing their jobs, but that the he was not going to allow the restaurants to open. In that conversation he falsely asserted that the Plaintiff had not done crap to comply with Building Code.

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14. On January 7, 2013, the Plaintiff, through counsel, attempted to file a Board of Appeal Application (the Application) with Denver Development Services pursuant to the Denver Building Code appealing the January 4, 2013 Order to Vacate. 15. A true and correct copy of the Board of Appeal Application is attached hereto as Exhibit 3. 16. An office administrative person for the Defendants immediately flagged the attempted filing based on the Propertys address and disappeared into the offices to contact Defendant Roach. 17. After some time, she eventually announced that Defendant Roach had instructed her not to accept the filing and rejected the same. 18. Counsel for the Plaintiff then addressed the matter with the Assistant Denver City Attorney who conceded that Defendant Roach did not have the authority to refuse the Application. 19. Through counsel, the Application was accepted back-dated to the original date of filing on January 7, 2013. A true and correct copy of the verification email from the City Attorney is attached as Exhibit 4. 20. Defendant Development Services and Board of Appeals accepted the filing with the elevated $500 fee for an emergency hearing before the Board of Appeals. 21. Pursuant to Section 109.4 of the Denver Building Code, In any matter in which an order or notice relating to an unsafe building or structure is appealed, the Building Official may certify to the Board that the building or structure could become an imminent hazard, in which case the Board shall schedule a meeting within 3 work days to hear said appeal. 22. In ruling that the building was unsafe, Defendant Roach based his decision in whole or in part on allegations that the structure could not meet wind load requirements and was in danger of collapse. 23. Correspondence from the Citys attorney indicates that Defendant Roach has, in fact, determined the structure on the Property is an imminent threat. A true and correct copy of that correspondence is attached as Exhibit 5. 24. The Defendants have never taken any other action to restrict use of adjacent sidewalks or to vacate neighboring buildings, as would be consistent if Defendant Roach actually had evidence that the four-story brick building were in imminent danger of collapse.

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25. Despite his Order and the basis therefore, Defendant Roach as Chief Building Official has refused to certify that the building or structure is an imminent hazard to the Board of Appeals and Development Services and/or the Board of Appeals has refused to schedule a Board of Appeals meeting within the required 3 days. 26. In fact, the City has still not scheduled a hearing or attempted to schedule a hearing before the Board of Appeals indicating instead that the same will be done in the discretion of the Chairman for the Board of Appeals. A true and correct copy of the related correspondence is attached as Exhibit 6. 27. Plaintiff is likely to prevail at a hearing before the Board of Appeals on the Application. 28. By taking the actions above, the City of Denver has deliberately and effectively denied Plaintiff its due process rights while shutting down two thriving businesses. 29. Defendants actions have closed the restaurants occupying the Property for the past week and will keep them closed indefinitely. 30. As a result, the tenants and their employees are suffering direct economic and other injury of an extreme magnitude, causing the tenants to be unable to make lease payments. 31. Defendant Roach has already suggested that the City will assist the restaurant tenants employees in finding new jobs, threatening to scatter the tenants trained workforce. 32. The Property is not unsafe for occupants, passersby, adjacent buildings, businesses, or traffic. 33. The Property is safer at this time than it has ever been in the past.

34. The Property has been occupied, with a myriad of different types of uses, for over 107 years without incident or harm to any individual or group. 35. The current occupants, the two existing restaurants, have occupied the Property and operated businesses with regular patronage for over three years without incident or harm to any individual or group. 36. Defendants had full knowledge of and granted permission for the current occupants, the two existing restaurants, to occupy the Property and conduct business for over two and one half years before claiming that the occupants were in imminent danger of being harmed.

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37. In taking the above actions, Defendant Roach and the City have acted willfully and wantonly to encroach upon the Plaintiffs due process rights. 38. The actions of Defendant Roach and the City have irreparably damaged the reputation of the Plaintiff and the Property. 39. Their actions have prevented the Plaintiff from leasing or otherwise using the space for any other purpose and threaten to do so indefinitely. 40. The Plaintiff, therefore, has and will continue to suffer real, immediate, and irreparable harm unless the actions of the Defendants are enjoined. 41. The Plaintiff is likely to succeed based upon the merits given the express requirements of the Defendants own Building Code. 42. This is a matter of substantial public concern and issuing the requested relief will not disserve the public interest. 43. There is no plain and speedy remedy at law available to the Plaintiff.

44. This injunction will preserve the status quo pending any additional necessary trial on the merits and ensure that Plaintiffs due process rights are not further violated. WHEREFORE, Plaintiff respectfully request that the Court enter a temporary restraining order and injunction as follows: (a) Ordering Defendant Michael Roach to vacate his Order to Vacate issued on January 4, 2013 and/or declaring the same is invalid and unenforceable effective immediately; and/or (b) Ordering the Defendants to give final approval of all outstanding permits and issue permanent certificates of occupancy for the Property. In the alternative to (a) and (b): (c) Ordering the Defendants to cease denying Plaintiff its appellate rights and set a Board of Appeals hearing on the Application within 24 hours of the issuance of the Order. (d) If the hearing cannot be conducted during that time, the Defendants are ordered to vacate the January 4, 2013 Order to Vacate and allow

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the Defendants or their tenants to occupy the Property as they had during the months preceding the Order until such time as a hearing can be held before the Board of Appeals. DATED this 11th day of January, 2013. I swear or affirm under penalty of perjury that the information contained in this Verified Complaint/Motion for Injunctive Relief is true and correct. I understand that once an Injunction is issued it cannot be modified or dismissed by me or the other party without permission of the Court. ___/s/ Jesse Morreale________________________ Jesse Morreale, Managing Member Morreale Hotels, LLC

As to Form and Legal Argument: Respectfully submitted, FOSTER GRAHAM MILSTEIN & CALISHER LLP __/s/ Michael J. Gates_ Michael J. Gates Counsel for Plaintiff

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