Two renowned Birmingham businessmen are embroiled in a High Court battle to decide who owns a strip of pavement outside the lap dancing club they once made a handsome living from.
Lawrence Reddy and Allan Sartori are at loggerheads over the area outside the Rocket Club in Broad Street, an area which Mr Sartori still legally owns despite having now parted company with the club.
Mr Sartori successfully claimed ownership of the land 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.
The lucrative slice of land not only houses an outdoor terrace with seating and a smoking shelter but also brings in rental income of almost £1,200 each week from a fast food trailer based there.
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.
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.
From 1991 the terrace became an elaborate extension of Ronnie Scott’s club, a Midlands offshoot of the famous London jazz club which Mr Sartori was one of the co-founders of. In 2001, Jazz Enterprises, the company which ran the club, went into liquidation with debts of £1.6 million.
Mr Sartori went on to launch the Rocket Club at the same location and the court heard Mr Sartori and Mr Reddy forged a business partnership.
They had become friends through their wives and when the club was struggling Mr Reddy agreed a “rescue package” and invested in it.
“My wife spoke to me and said they were going to lose the house and I said I would see what I could do,” said Mr Reddy, who left the day-to-day running of the club to Mr Sartori, only acting as an adviser and consultant.
Mr Reddy said he initially invested £100,000 and soon after a further £50,000, to cover rent payments for the club. He claimed he invested £360,000 in total.
“Most of the other bills hadn’t been paid and the club needed decorating,” he said during the hearing at the Chancery Division of the High Court in Birmingham. “It then continued to trade at a loss for about six months.”
But the business was turned around and Mr Reddy revealed how he recouped all of his investment and at one stage gave Mr Sartori a £100,000 bonus because the club was doing so well.
Initially rent for the catering outlet was paid to Mr Sartori but from 2003 it began to be paid to the club.
William Hansen, Mr Sartori’s barrister, said the defendant made it clear to Mr Reddy at a meeting with solicitors that the land in front of the club belonged to him while Mr Reddy said the subject was “never discussed”.
Mr Hansen pointed to a lack of documentation relating to Mr Sartori’s employment at the Rocket Club, to which Mr Reddy said: “Once upon a time gentlemen used to shake hands and that was the way to do business.”