Daily News Does Big Story On Car Show Lawsuit With Some Commentary

This morning the Daily News published a pretty big article on the hoopla surrounding the lawsuit and circumstances that have ended the ritualistic car show/gathering that used to occur in the parking lot of Valley Roasters on Mulholland Drive in Woodland Hills.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and speak my mind about this.  In this article, and with this story in general, there are a lot of people associated with the car show that are blowing their own horn – excuse the pun.  Let’s face it, the relationship between landlord and tenant is always a very tenuous one.  It’s even worse when one tenant causes strain between the landlord and the other tenants.

Dustin Troyan, operator of Valley Roasters, seems like a really great guy.  He does charity work at as scale that is so impressive that it almost unbelievable.  That’s great stuff.  He’s an asset to the community.

But, also, he is a businessman.  In a way, I admire him because he got away with having this event in that parking lot on Sunday mornings without any real compensation to his neighbors  for the disproportionate use of the parking lot (besides some increased business) for a very long time.

But, both he and the people who brought their cars there need to realize that the other businesses there pay rent, too.  So, if they don’t exactly like the situation, it’s completely within their rights to raise objections about it.  In these articles, I see a lot of people acting as though they are entitled to something that they aren’t.

In addition, most of their quotes are full of red herrings, designed to throw people off the real issues of the situation which is really a lanlord/tenant dispute.  Saying things  along the lines of “They just hate me because I drive a classic car” is really not useful or constructive.  Throw money at the people, that usually solves these problems.  If you want to inconvenience me, make it worth my while.  That is how people think, and rightly so.

One particularly stupid quote from Troyan’s attorney in the article:

“They are discriminating against people they don’t like by the looks of the cars they drive,” Arden said. “They are also discriminating against their own tenants.”

Clearly some tenants want it, and some don’t.  It’s the property owners’ job to make sure they don’t get sued by the tenants that don’t.  Troyan’s failure was to not make any real attempt before things got out of control to appease all of the tenants.  I also find it frustrating that the way that Troyan and company attempt to make this story and situation about the car lovers, and brush aside any notion that his promotion of the event may be unfair to other tenants, shoppers, and the property owners.

“We used to have regular customers here on Sunday and they’re gone,” Troyan said. “If you pull up in your Ferrari, you’re told to get out. They will intimidate the hell out of you. But if you pull up in a minivan, you can stay.”

Troyan makes quotes like the one above all the time.  It’s designed to manipulate the weak minded.  You see, it’s an attempt to set up the notion that if Jay Leno, a Ferrari owner, or people in their 60s and 70s are involved, then it must be okay, legal, within his lease, or not annoying to others not directly involved with the event.  It’s a distraction from the real issue.

The Daily News article reads a little bit more like a press release for the event and Valley Roasters than an objective news story.  Granted, it seems that everyone on the other side of the issue refused to give a statement.

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• Article Link: Daily News Article