After a two-year running battle with Volusia County’s code-enforcement officers and attorneys, the owner of the once-popular nightspot north of DeLand has closed the place. 

Pete Ferrentino, owner of the now-defunct City Limits Taproom and Grille, vows to move to a less restrictive area.

“I’m moving on. My next venture will be in Seminole County,” Ferrentino told The Beacon. “The good thing about Seminole County is that they are business-friendly.”

Ferrentino said his last night of operating City Limits, located at 4425 North U.S. Highway 17, was Oct. 27, amid patrons saddened to lose their place to eat, drink, watch sports and socialize.

Ferrentino has ruled out reopening City Limits, noting he has sold the property to an investor in Daytona Beach.

“We close in December,” he said. “We don’t know what it’s going to be.”

The restaurant and bar are on a choice 3 1/2-acre site along the highway. Ferrentino said City Limits’ alcoholic-beverage license stays with the building. 

The parcel may even be developed for condominiums, he added.

“City Limits provided a good location. It provided a place for children and adults,” he said, adding the business had often engaged in fundraisers for needy children and other causes.

“The county is not friendly for mom-and-pop businesses,” Ferrentino also said.

From the beginning

The saga of Ferrentino and City Limits began in the fall of 2022, after some Orthodox Jewish neighbors publicly complained to the County Council about late-night noise and music emanating from the business. Having relocated as a congregation from New York a few years ago, the Jewish neighbors settled in the quiet rural community close to DeLeon Springs. 

Besides the volume of the noise, the devout members told of the difficulty of finding peace and rest on their Sabbath. The 24-hour Sabbath, which begins at sunset Friday and continues until sunset Saturday, is a time for prayer, meditation and worship. The Jewish believers also abstain from work and routine secular activities during the time set aside for holy pursuits. The loud music and noise from traffic going to and leaving the bar interfered with their ability to observe the Sabbath, according to the neighbors, and the noise also prevented them from getting enough sleep.

After county officials became aware of the complaints, they launched a code-enforcement investigation. Code officers filed reports of several violations of the county’s building, zoning and property-use ordinances, including violations of improvements made without the required permits, the performance of special events without permits, and the lack of a site plan for the City Limits property. 

Some of the violations required Ferrentino to appear before the county’s Code Enforcement Board. Ferrentino said some of the problems actually dated back to previous owners of the City Limits parcel, but code officers insisted that he, Ferrentino, was nevertheless responsible because he had purchased the site, formerly Pitmasters BBQ, and thus owned the shortcomings, as well as the property.

“They went back to 1986 with my permit [for a fence],” Ferrentino said.

The saga goes on

Ferrentino also said the code officers would find or raise new alleged violations each time they visited City Limits to check on then-existing shortcomings and check on his progress toward compliance. He even alleged the county was targeting him and City Limits for “selective enforcement.” HIs requests to obtain a definitive list of outstanding code issues were unsuccessful, as each visit or conversation with the inspectors raised new problems, including reports of interior modifications of the business and allegations of a food truck and a cargo container on the site without the county’s OK. 

Each of the code violations may be punished with fines of hundreds of dollars per day, if so ordered by the Code Enforcement Board. The threat of such fines loomed large, but the board gave Ferrentino time to “come into compliance” and withheld imposing the steep fines. Repeat hearings before the board resulted in more time to cure the violations, and the fines, though still a threat, were subsequently deferred.

In addition, Volusia County Sheriff’s deputies responded to City Limits on scores of occasions following noise complaints, but Ferrentino says he was never issued a citation.

Before City Limits closed, Ferrentino was facing only two code violations. One pertained to a misplaced fence, and the other was the lack of a site plan for the land, the building, parking and an outdoor stage. Ferrentino paid an engineer to draw the required site plan, which was also delayed because of the lack of a more recent survey.

A costly bar tab

Meanwhile, the expenses to deal with legal snarls mounted.

“Here I was defending myself. It was $12,000 for attorneys every time it was a nuisance complaint,” Ferrentino said. “I spent over $60,000 last year to get nowhere.”

As well as the struggles with county code officers, Ferrentino and his wife, Paula Outzen, co-owner of City Limits, were defendants in a lawsuit filed by the neighbors over the business’s alleged nuisances. In July, Volusia County Circuit Judge Michael Orfinger denied a request from the plaintiffs, including a nonprofit organization known as Neighbors Against Pollution, for a temporary injunction against City Limits.  

“The Court finds that the Plaintiffs failed to produce sufficient evidence at the hearing to warrant entry of a temporary injunction,” Orfinger wrote in his 18-page ruling.

A trial on the main body of the civil suit against City Limits and its owners, alleging “intolerable and antisemitic” actions on the part of the bar, may go to trial in January. The plaintiffs are seeking a jury trial and compensatory damages.

In any event, Ferrentino of late chose to close City Limits.

“They hit my wife and me with nuisance charges. I paid about $1,600 [in fines],” he said.

Assistant County Attorney Sebrina Slack, who formerly handled code-enforcement cases, says she is unaware of such a fine. 

Slack, in an email response to a query from The Beacon, said that the county has offered Outzen and Ferrentino a “deferred prosecution” agreement, in which seven pending nuisance complaints would be cured with the payment of $300. One hundred dollars would be paid to the county, and $200 would be paid to the Sheriff’s Office.

Ferrentino has not commented on the county’s offer.

As for the cases pending before the Code Enforcement Board, Senior County Attorney Paolo Soria said the Code Enforcement Board will consider granting a finding of compliance in its pending cases against City Limits — now that the business has ceased to operate. That item is to be considered at the board’s Dec. 18 meeting, he added.

“No fines due to the code compliances [sic] cases are accruing and no fines have been paid,” Soria wrote.

With the closing of City Limits went 23 jobs, Ferrentino said, adding he has been able to place most of his displaced workers in new employment elsewhere.