Blind Tiger owner asks council for compensation after week-long closure; council adds agenda item to negotiate parking-lot construction resolution

Brett Parkin, co-owner of the Blind Tiger restaurant on Scenic Highway 98, told the Fairhope City Council on June 9 that the business was given about five days’ notice that it would have to close for roughly a week during nearby construction and asked the council for compensation to cover lost sales and staff tips.

Parkin said the restaurant typically does about $30,000 a week in sales and that the closure will force the discard of fresh inventory and cause long-term customer attrition. "So with that sales, about $30,000, we're operating at 28% food budget... our request was for the $30,000 in lost sales, $4,500 so that we could repay the waiters and waitresses, their lost tips," Parkin said in public comment.

The council subsequently amended the agenda after an executive session to add a resolution (added as item 17) authorizing Mayor Sherry Sullivan to negotiate a resolution related to the temporary inconvenience of parking-lot construction near or adjacent to the Blind Tiger; that proposed resolution will be brought back to council for ratification.

Why it matters: Parkin’s statement frames a direct local impact of city construction activity on a downtown business; the council’s amendment signals it will pursue a negotiated approach and return the negotiated terms to the full council for consideration.

What the owner told the council

Parkin said the closure was unavoidable and that the restaurant’s largely fresh-food inventory must be discarded. He described the economic effect as immediate and lasting: customers who arrive to find the restaurant closed often do not return for weeks, he said. Parkin told the council he and his co-owners had previously requested help (a rent reduction from 3% to 1.5% of sales) but that such a reduction provides no assistance when sales are zero during a closure.

Parkin summarized his request in these terms as recorded in the public transcript: "We're gonna have to close the restaurant down for basically a week... So we will lose $30,000 of cash in the bank as a result of the closure... Our our goal for this, let me say... we'd ideally like to be able to pay, keep the people on staff, so that's why we're asking for some form of compensation in that regard." The transcript shows Parkin said his business would borrow the funds if necessary but asked the city to consider an alternative.

Council action

After the council returned from executive session, members moved to amend the agenda and add a resolution authorizing the mayor to negotiate terms addressing the temporary parking-lot construction inconvenience near the Blind Tiger. The added item directs the mayor to present a negotiated resolution to the council for ratification at a future meeting.

What the transcript does not show

- No formal compensation policy or payment was approved during the June 9 meeting. The council added an item to allow the mayor to negotiate a resolution but did not adopt substantive terms or an amount. - No roll-call vote or vote tally specific to any negotiated settlement is recorded; the transcript only shows the agenda amendment was approved by voice vote.

Next steps

The added agenda item (item 17) instructs the mayor to negotiate a resolution and return it to council for ratification. Parkin and other interested parties may expect the negotiated terms to appear on a future agenda for formal council action.