The City of Chehalis and Yard Birds Shopping Center had the hearing for an injunction to restrict access to the mall canceled following the provision of additional engineering information provided to the court by Yard Birds representatives.
The injunction was originally sought due to the city’s fear that the structural integrity of Yard Birds was compromised.
On March 2, the city filed a lawsuit against entities involved with the Yard Birds Shopping Center after claiming the mall failed to come into compliance with a number of city code violations. Specifically, the lawsuit was filed against Peat LLC and R&D Research & Development LLC.
As an additional measure, a hearing for an injunction to restrict access to the property was scheduled for March 11.
“The litigation is still standing,” Chehalis City Manager Jill Anderson told The Chronicle Tuesday. “They are still required to come into compliance. We had a hearing scheduled for March 11 before the judge about a possible injunction, and it was canceled by the judge on a mutual request from both parties because (Yard Birds) provided a letter from a professional engineer indicating that the building was not a threat to collapse.”
However, Anderson said, “There still continues to be considerable issues throughout the site.”
The city has alleged the owners and operators of Yard Birds created a public nuisance by allowing people to live on the property at an RV park for more than 14 days, violated building sprinkler requirements and conducted unauthorized use of its space as an event center without providing visitors with proper means to exit the venue in the case of an emergency, among other alleged violations to city code.
A Yard Birds representative has denied many of the city’s claims.
The lawsuit was filed after the city’s unsuccessful attempts dating back to April 2021 to work with Yard Birds operators to correct what the city calls the mall’s “life-safety” violations, according to previous Chronicle reports.
In December, the city issued an order of abatement for the mall to come into compliance with city code, the 60-day deadline for which expired Monday, Feb. 14.
Yard Birds had failed to meet the requirements of the abatement by that time, according to the City of Chehalis.
Chehalis Planning and Building Manager Tammy Baraconi previously told The Chronicle that the city is “really just looking at the life-safety issues” that aspects of the mall’s operation poses to the public, adding that it also wants to remove the permanent residents from the RV park.
Yard Birds Shopping Center is located at 2100 N National Avenue in Chehalis.
