Sharky's states its case (VIDEO)
Mike Pachota, owner of Sharky's on the Pier, asks council to reconsider a few points in the ongoing land lease dispute between the city and the restaurant
-- John Patten, 02/29/08
-- jpatten@veniceflorida.com

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BACKGROUND:
Death of a manager: George Hunt and the blank lease
-- Venice Florida! dot com, 03/02/03
Sharky's and Venice cannot agree
-- Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 02/28/07

On February 26, city council went into a closed and private "shade meeting' with City Attorney Bob Anderson to review options in the ongoing dispute with Sharky's Restaurant. The restaurant leases beachfront land from the airport.

The dispute centers around a lease negotiated with Sharky's by former city manager George Hunt. That lease had blank spaces where dollar amounts were supposed to go.

Lost in the news shuffle was Sharky's owner Mike Pachota's pitch to council to stop the madness and come back to the table. Pachota spoke to council two weeks earlier, on February 12.

(note: there's about a three-second dropout in the middle of the video -- it is not a deliberate edit, it was caused by a minor glitch on the DVD disc that this clip was taken from and there's little that can be done to fix it; it's fairly obvious from the context as to what is in the missing three or so seconds)

John Patten is the head of Web Operations for Creative Pages, and has worked in broadcasting for over 12 years. He can also be incredibly rude at times.