Hank's restaurant in legal battle with city

Hank's Texas Grill has been granted a temporary restraining order against the city of McKinney, and a hearing next week will determine whether the order should be permanent.

Hank's, a restaurant at the southeast corner of White Avenue and Central Expressway in McKinney, filed for the order Aug. 23 in the 366th District Court and obtained its first legal leverage against the city, which Hank's owner Ron Reynolds says "has harassed us for 10 years."

City personnel, namely members of the McKinney police, fire and code-enforcement departments, must stay off Hank's property without the restaurant's permission, invitation or probable cause. And McKinney police must refrain from stopping anyone leaving the restaurant without probable cause.

Application for the order came after the city sent the restaurant a letter Aug. 9 stating it would seek the court's help to shut it down if it did not come into compliance with 80 alleged health, building and fire code violations.

In response to the granted order, the city filed its own petition for a restraining order against Hank's the following day, outlining for the court the code violations and requesting Hank's be closed until it came into compliance.

The alleged violations were determined June 12 during a site inspection conducted by McKinney fire, building, construction and food-service department members. It was a follow-up inspection to the last inspection performed in December 2010.

The city cited 11 sections of its Code of Ordinances of which Hank's is in violation. Code violations involve the lack of required emergency systems and lighting, unapproved hanging materials, entrance and exit hindrances, and kitchen-area accessibility, among many others.

The city's petition states that "the premises in their current condition are in violation of a number of the city's ordinances and create a danger to the life, health, property and safety of the public."

Hank's management says the inspection was overblown and violations were "made up" because the city wants a reason to shut the restaurant down.

"We built the restaurant the way they told us to build it," said Reynolds, who opened Hank's in 2003. "A lot of them are fake violations, things they'd never bring up anywhere else. ...The city of McKinney is anti-small business. If it's a corporate business, like a Chili's, they're not going to treat them like this."

Reynolds listed examples of what he deems made-up or trivial violations. He said the city's recent inspection violated the restaurant for stacking Styrofoam cups in cardboard boxes to the ceiling, and for having cracked or faded paint on parking lot stripes.

Another such violation, he said, was having a Texas flag on the same wall it's been since the restaurant opened, as well as hanging other sports team banners, beer banners and deer heads around the restaurant.

Stated in the city's petition is the reason for such wall coverings being in violation: "The city has not been provided documentation to demonstrate whether these items meet the applicable interior finish requirements."

To Reynolds and his son, Hank's general manager David Reynolds, the 15-page violations report is just the latest episode of "harassment" from the city, which issued the restaurant its first Certificate of Occupancy on March 14, 2003.

According to documents that Hank's showed the court in asking for the restraining order, the city issued updated certificates in 2006 and again in December 2008 after it "had on three separate occasions inspected and measured the restaurant." The city ruled the restaurant's occupancy load at 711 people (391 for the patio area) in that certificate.

The documents state that on July 12 of this year, city representatives came to Hank's and ruled it could not have more than 300 occupants and that it must have a "fire watch" on Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings - someone selected by the city to count the occupants at any time and ensure Hank's does not exceed its load limit.

David, who has managed Hank's since it opened, told the court that the city "has without interruption, through the police and fire departments, come on Hank's Texas Grill's property without invitation, permission or probable cause harassing and intimidating its patrons and staff" more than 500 times since 2003.

He described how police drive through the Hank's parking lot "in a slow and menacing manner" sometimes as many as 15 times in a two-and-a-half-hour period. Hank's staff began videotaping such police conduct, for which David said he was arrested.

The documents also state that McKinney police and fire personnel have on multiple occasions "stopped live music from being performed and ordered...patrons out of the restaurant costing Hank's Texas Grill thousands of dollars."

"When we opened, the city said, 'We want you to be successful, we're just here to help,'" Reynolds said. "But when they shut you down and force all of your customers to leave several times, you don't see it that way."

The most recent incident highlighted in the documents involved restaurant manager Bobby Andrews, who was allegedly stopped by police outside Hank's the morning of July 22. David told the court that when Andrews asked police why they stopped him, they told him, "You were leaving that bar."

Hank's management met with Asst. Police Chief Randy Roland four days later, and Roland told them Andrews was stopped for failing to signal a turn and assured them there would be audio and video recording of the stop, according to the application.

The document states that Hank's requested the recording but the city claimed no such tape exists, and that when Andrews' license tag was provided, the city had no record of the stop.

Also in the application, Hank's management references other incidences of what they deem infringement on theirs and restaurant patrons' civil rights.

"We feel like we've been grossly abused," Reynolds said. "This is our life. We've been here every day since 2002, and the city is trying to close us down."

The McKinney Police Department deferred commenting on the situation to the city staff, who in turn deferred to a later time. "We cannot comment on pending or ongoing litigation," City Manager Jason Gray said this week.

Litigation will continue at Tuesday's hearing, which Reynolds said will be "more like a trial" and could last a few days given the "volumes of information" and video Hank's has on past and recent incidents involving the city.

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