The case appears headed to Circuit Court on appeal, but
it is a victory for the East Side property owner after
he drew the ire of neighbors last summer for blocking
the alley behind his properties at 2006 and 2010 E.
Michigan Ave. Lansing City Attorney Janene McIntyre said
last week that the city has the right to appeal Clarke’s
decision on the attorney fees. “At this point, we’re
trying to resolve this” out of court, McIntyre said.
“That’s not going to happen,” Zeineh said in response.
In July, Zeineh parked two cars that obstructed passage
through the alley on property owned by him and the
entity EL Investment Properties. Zeineh bought the
properties from Pat Lindemann, the Ingham County drain
commissioner, in February 2013. Lindemann’s family owned
the properties, which included a well-known butcher
shop, for over 40 years.
After 5 p.m. on a July evening, the city had the cars
towed, saying they were abandoned. According to court
documents, the city then claimed the cars were blocking
a fire lane, which was designated as such only after the
cars were towed.
Clarke ruled that the cars were neither abandoned
(because they were on Zeineh’s property, were registered
to him, and one even had Zeineh’s business card
displayed in the window) nor were they blocking a fire
lane, which hadn’t been established at the time and
which Clarke called a “remedial action” by the city.
Zeineh said he’s appealing a city board’s decision that
designated the alleyway a fire lane after his vehicles
were towed.
Clarke also said in court that the matter could have
been resolved without any towing. Evidence that the cars
were towed after 5 p.m. on a Friday evening suggests
that wasn’t the case, he said.
“He was never presented with the opportunity in what
appears to be the haste to get this issue resolved,”
Clarke said, according to a court transcript.
Zeineh called the towing a “petty way to solve a
perceived problem.”
When asked why he blocked passage through the alley in
the first place, Zeineh said: “I think it was my right
to. In hindsight, would I have done something different?
Maybe. But this is free speech in my eyes.”
