Court orders 10 crippled
Arco stations repaired

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By Tim Ruel
truel@starbulletin.com

Ten Arco gasoline stations on Oahu, which had their pumps shut down last week in a dispute between the dealers and their Dallas-based owner, could open again in the next week or so, following a Circuit Court order that the owner should not have dismantled the stations' gas pumps in the first place.

Judge Gary W.B. Chang had issued a temporary restraining order on the night of Jan. 11 to stop owner U.S. Restaurant Properties Inc. from dismantling the electronic equipment that allowed the Arco stations to pump gas. Chang ruled yesterday that a representative of U.S. Restaurant had purposefully avoided reading the order.

U.S. Restaurant sued last year to evict the stations' dealers, Amgad Wahba and Riyad Khoury. Their attorney, Mark S. Kawata, asked Chang for the temporary restraining order after Kawata learned that U.S. Restaurant was removing the equipment from the stations.

Under the order, U.S. Restaurant should have also returned the equipment to the stations. Instead, after dismantling eight of the 10 stations, U.S. Restaurant shipped the equipment to the mainland.

When questioned by Kawata, U.S. Restaurant's representative, Jack H. Jennings, acknowledged that he refused to look at a copy of the order that had been faxed to one of the stations.

Kawata said he called Jennings three times that night and told him to stop. Jennings said he didn't know who was calling him.

"I could have been talking to Saddam Hussein on that telephone," Jennings said during his testimony.

Chang ruled that U.S. Restaurant was in contempt of court because Jennings avoided the restraining order. Chang noted that Jennings had financial experience and knew what the order represented. Chang gave U.S. Restaurant until Wednesday to return the equipment, or the court will fine U.S. Restaurant $1,000 a day for each station that doesn't have the equipment.

"This court is extremely offended by that kind of conduct," Chang said in making his ruling.

After the ruling, Wahba said he was pleased and that he will reopen the stations as soon as possible.

Former Attorney General Margery Bronster, who signed on yesterday to represent U.S. Restaurant, said the company may appeal the ruling. The temporary restraining order was granted based on false information that U.S. Restaurant did not own the equipment it removed, she said.

The dealers also got the restraining order by warning Chang of the potential for violence when U.S. Restaurant went to dismantle the stations. That's ironic, since the dealers had told their employees to stop U.S. Restaurant, said David Minkin, another attorney for U.S. Restaurant.

However, U.S. Restaurant was escorted by off-duty police officers that night, hired by Lex Brodie's Tire Co. Brodie has agreed to buy all 24 of the stations owned by U.S. Restaurant, but the deal is blocked by the dispute with the dealers, according to people familiar with the situation.