The legal saga between a shuttered downtown Pottsville business and the City government played out at Schuylkill County Courthouse on Friday.
Bobby Weaver Jr., on behalf of Black Rocking Brewing Co., was before Court of Common Pleas Judge Christina Hale on Friday morning for a hearing in which he was seeking to reopen the record on a hearing held earlier this year before Pottsville’s Uniform Construction Code Board of Appeals.
A mandamus hearing scheduled for Friday afternoon before Judge Bill Burke was continued earlier in the day at the request of Pottsville. Weaver said he learned that the City had switched lawyers for that hearing and needed more time to prepare.
In that mandamus hearing, Weaver’s company was looking for an injunction that would have required Pottsville to perform a code inspection on his condemned building at 325 S. Centre St.
A date for that mandamus hearing has not been set.
Looking to Reopen the Record
In a February hearing before Pottsville’s UCC Board of Appeals, plans submitted by Black Rock to reopen the business were denied.
Weaver, at that time, promised an appeal of the decision to the Schuylkill County Court of Common Pleas.
Before Judge Hale on Friday morning, Weaver’s attorney Steven Carpenito argued the UCC board in Pottsville considered evidence that wasn’t presented at the hearing in February. He asked that Hale grant his side a de novo hearing to reopen the record on that UCC hearing from earlier this year.
“The board went outside the evidence,” he told Hale. “We should have been questioned. We were not. We should be able to introduce evidence. Based on that, we should be able to supplement the record.”
He also argued that one board member should have recused himself from the hearing but didn’t because he said the board member had the so-called evidence and took that into the room when the UCC board deliberated their decision to ultimately deny Black Rock’s plans.
Carpenito also called into question the constitutionality of the original condemnation of the building from May 2023, arguing that Pottsville may not even have an International Property Maintenance Code appeals board. Weaver was cited and his business condemned based on IPMC violations.
Attorney Eric Brown, representing the UCC Board of Appeals, asked Hale to deny the request for a de novo hearing, saying that Black Rock was never denied the right to present evidence or witnesses at that February hearing.
He said to Hale, “At no point was it deprived the ability to present evidence.”
Hale told the parties that she’s issue a ruling on whether or not the record on the UCC hearing could be reopened “as soon as possible.”
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