Two renowned Birmingham businessmen who were once “best friends” fell out in dramatic fashion at a dinner party arranged to discuss the sale of the lap dancing club they ran together.
Laurence Reddy and Allan Sartori have been battling it out in the High Court over a prized piece of pavement immediately outside the Rocket Club on Broad Street.
The lucrative slice of land houses an outdoor terrace with seating and a smoking shelter and brings in rental income of almost £1,200 each week from a fast food trailer based there.
Now the two former business partners must wait for a judge’s decision as to who is the rightful owner.
Mr Sartori successfully claimed ownership of the land from the Land Registry in 2009 but Rocket Club owners Balevents Ltd, which is owned by Mr Reddy’s family, claim the prized piece of pavement rightfully belongs to the club rather than its former general manager.
Mr Sartori’s claim to the land is based on the fact he says his father Bernard sold sandwiches there from a kiosk as far back as the 1970s.
He claimed he carried on the business from the 1980s, running it in tandem with the Rep Cafe Bar, also on Broad Street.
The legal battle follows a falling out between Mr Sartori and Mr Reddy who were involved in the club together until the company which ran it under licence, Broad Street Entertainments, was wound up last year.
Mr Sartori bowed out of the business while Mr Reddy continued running the club.
The court was told of an arrangement between the two businessmen for Mr Sartori to buy the club from Mr Reddy, who had come in as an investor when the fledgling club was struggling.
William Hansen, for Mr Sartori, referred to a meeting between the two men in the Green Man pub in Middleton where he said there was an agreement Mr Reddy would sell the club to Mr Sartori for £400,000, something which the men ‘‘shook hands on’’.
Mr Reddy said: “I said ‘Allan, you are going to make much more money working with me than alone’.
‘‘I may well have said ‘we will see what we can do’. For months before we had been talking about ‘his family business’ and it was moving that way. In principle I accepted his offer of £400,000 – to be discussed subsequently.”
