World Advertising News

Mariano Rivera

Oh Mo she didn't!

A managing agent forbade an East Side eatery from advertising that Yankee great Mariano Rivera is one of its owners because "she did not want 'ghetto people' from the Bronx congregating in the restaurant," a shocking new lawsuit claims.

In papers filed in Manhattan Supreme Court, Manhattan Sports Restaurants of America, which owns Siro's on Second Ave., says it was also advised to keep two African-American employees off of its patio, and banned from selling Indian or Asian cuisine "because having persons from a third world country, the Indian sub-continent and Asia, would not fit in with defendant's idea of what the building's image should be like."

The constant meddling of the managing agent, Susanne Lieu of One Dag Corp., resulted in the company losing millions of dollars, and Siro's going out of business, the suit says.

The filing says the sabotage was intentional - Lieu wanted them gone because she didn't want to have a restaurant as a tenant, the suit says.

A lawyer for Lieu called the owners' high and tight legal fastball "baseless and defamatory," and said they'd defend the case "vigorously."

MSRA says it subletted the space in March 2011 for a restaurant with a baseball "clubhouse" theme and "a bar shaped like a sports stadium."

After the company "spent millions of dollars on the installation of the restaurant, defendant would interfere with plaintiffs' quiet enjoyment and use of the premises in any way she could."

That included barring mention that the revered - and now retired - Yankee closer Rivera, a close pal of MSRA principal Keith Kantrowitz, was an investor in the eatery, even though Kantrowitz had arranged to use his name.

She advised the principal owner, Keith Kantrowitz, that she would "not permit the image of a stadium or Mariano Rivera's name to be used" for fear "ghetto people" would frequent the bar.

She also forced them to move their sign, cut off electricity to the sign box at night, and refused to let them fix their elevator, the filing says.

Lieu also barred them from showing sporting events on their TVs - a significant problem for a sports bar.

"Customers are watching a basketball game at the bar. She comes in and says 'you're not allowed to watch sports' and made them change the channel," said MSRA's lawyer, David Jaroslawicz. "It killed us."

He also accused the landlord of imposing a huge, illegal surcharge on the restaurant's electric bills, and trying to steal the restaurant's furnishings last spring by calling the police to get them to stop removing the stuff after they were forced to shut down.

A lawyer for Lieu, who's Asian, "an obvious attempt to divert attention from the failure of plaintiff's restaurant and the separate litigation in which it is now involved," referring to an ongoing court fight with the original leaseholder, Ruth's Chris.

The lawyer, Andrew Levander, said, "We intend to defend against these claims vigorously and to pursue all appropriate forms of relief."

Jaroslawicz would not comment on how large Rivera's stake in the restaurant was.