Fairport building owner claims lawsuit by village is ‘retaliatory animus’

The owner of a Fairport commercial building cited by the village for more than 200 alleged code violations says he has been targeted for “selective enforcement and retaliation” because he challenged the municipality’s previous administrative actions regarding his properties.

American Park Place, LLC, an entity managed by Douglas Calabrese, claims in court papers filed in state Supreme Court on Wednesday that the village’s code enforcement actions in the fall were far more about flexing governmental muscle than ensuring public safety.

The village filed a complaint in state Supreme Court on Feb. 17, detailing the 200-plus violations that were found at 111 Parse Ave. during three days of inspections in October and November. The complaint seeks more than $4.4 million in fines ($200 per day per violation) for the issues at the nearly 400,000-square-foot, multi-tenant property.

The inspections were conducted by Mark Lenzi, the village code enforcement officer, with assistance from Allen Reitz, who oversees the building department for the town of Penfield, but only after a village obtained a court order to do so. The village complaint alleges inspectors were denied entry into the building in July.

That complaint also alleged there are violations that “present immediate safety concerns to tenants of the building and the public,” and that American Park Place failed to provide by the Feb. 13 deadline a course of action on how the violations would be corrected.

But in answering the complaint, the defense attorney, Avik K. Ganguly of Ganguly Brothers Misula PLLC, says the recorded code violations do not present immediate safety concerns, that more than 85 percent already have been corrected and that many are “trivial maintenance items such as tall weeds, missing address numbers and peeling paint.”

The defense response also contends “the village’s enforcement actions against defendant are motivated not by legitimate public safety worries but by retaliatory animus rising from defendant’s exercise of its constitutional rights, including its request for a neutral inspector (from the town of Perinton) and its commencement of litigation challenging the village’s conduct.”

Asking the court to approve $4.4 million in fines was done to “maximize public shock value rather than reflect actual harm,” the defense answer states.

The defense answer also says a response regarding correcting of the code violations was prepared and provided to defendant’s counsel on Feb. 12, a day before the deadline, “but due to an internal miscommunication was not forwarded to the village’s counsel until Feb. 18.”

Calabrese, along with NCTBP Calabrese LLC and American Park Place, are plaintiffs in a case underway in U.S. District Court in the Western District of New York that alleges the village has selectively targeted their properties for enforcement since 2023. That case was filed in October in state Supreme Court, then shifted to federal court at the request of the village.

In answering the village’s Feb. 17 complaint about 111 Parse Ave., Calabrese and American Park Place provided background on previous issues, saying that in 2023-24 the village building inspector (Lenzi) declared 80 N. Main St. unsafe for occupancy despite engineering reports that said structural repairs could be made while tenants were in place.

The ruling cost Calabrese $280,000 because a prospective cannabis retailer could not move into the building, the federal complaint alleges.

Because American Park Place believed the Fairport building inspector would not provide a fair inspection of the Parse Avenue property, a request was made over the summer for an independent inspector. That request was refused, the defense answer states.

American Park Place also asserted a “laches and estoppel” defense, alleging that the village’s own failure to conduct a fire inspection at the Parse Avenue property for at least 10 to 15 years “allowed conditions to develop over time. The village may not now demand immediate compliance and seek penalties accruing at over $40,000 per day for conditions that resulted in part from its own inaction.”

The defense is seeking compensatory and punitive damages, attorney costs and an order prohibiting future “retaliatory enforcement” on its properties.

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